Catastrophe
by GhostOfBambi
Summary: With a best-laid plan, a naked rear end, one jalapeño and a pair of light-up antlers, Lily Evans's carefully crafted life is hurtled into chaos.
1. Prologue

**Author's Notes:** Oooh, mystery.

I'm not making any update schedule promises with this one, because I always end up getting stressed and breaking them and I have other multi-chapters to finish editing before I get going, but it's January 1st, and I wanted to post something that has, so far, proved itself easy to write.

This fic is inspired by something I'll reveal later. Ho hum.

 **Prologue**

Sirius Black had something on his arse.

As far as Lily could deduce, it was either a very small mole or an abnormally large blackhead, and was intriguing and irritating in equal measure, particularly when the evening sun began its daily descent, sending one last, effulgent golden ray through the narrow windows of Trelawney's living room for a brief collection of minutes. The Thing became so well-lit, and thereby distracting, that it skated perilously close to affecting Lily's work.

Mole or blackhead? Blackhead or mole? What was this growth which so proudly stared her down as she strove to perfect the curve of Black's oblate, anaemically pale bottom?

Her opinion varied from week to week, but she didn't dare ask him. He would take her interest for the compliment it wasn't. Sirius liked to assume that everyone fancied the shit out of him, and took personal offence when he discovered an individual – such as, to pick a name at random, herself – who disproved his theory. Most of the women and a few of the men in class were captivated, which didn't help matters. One would think that eight admirers, including the bloody teacher, were enough to contend with, but Sirius was a greedy prick.

Lily liked him, though, as much as one could like a person after four weeks of squinting at their flat, pasty-white backside. Sketching him in all his unclothed glory, while a little dull, wasn't the _worst_ way to spend one's Tuesday evening, as she reminded one of her friends during a session in mid-October.

"At any given time, someone else in the world is getting a colonoscopy," she pointed out. "That's got to be more unpleasant than this."

"True," Remus Lupin agreed. "And at least we're not sitting in front of him."

Remus said that a lot, with a slight air of desperation, almost like a benediction unto himself. It was already worse for Remus than for Lily. He and Sirius were close friends, going back years. Few people want to see their close friend's penis.

Sadly, for Remus, it was partly his fault that Sirius was their nude model to begin with. He and Lily had been attending Trelawney's art class for close to a year when she floated the idea of figure drawing and asked her students to source her a model. Remus told someone, who told someone else, who told someone's sister, who told Sirius – thus, one Tuesday evening found Remus dismayed by the sight of Sirius, his childhood friend, striding into the room in a decadent silk robe.

"It is I!" he had declared, casting it from his slender body, and Remus had buried his head in his hands. Thus, Lily Evans met Sirius Black, and became far too acquainted with his naked rear end.

Lily never would have expected that a random bloke's arse would play such a pivotal role in the mess she ended up in, and yet it did, somehow.

Funny old life.


	2. Judicial Discretion

**Author's Notes:** Ten points to anyone who can tell me what book Mary's quote is from.

 **Chapter 1**

 **Judicial Discretion**

"Are you going out for the Halloween weekend?" Lily asked Remus one evening, while she shaded the crack of Sirius's derriere and tried to keep her attention away from the mole/blackhead hybrid.

It was looking more moleish today, but her opinion on that swayed regularly.

"Probably," Remus replied. "A couple of friends are coming up from London, so we might go to the pub on Friday."

"Wild."

"Isn't it?"

"No," said Sirius, posing provocatively on the chaise lounge.

"If you can't see us, you can't talk to us," said Lily loudly.

Sirius slung a glare at her over his shoulder, looking very much like a sullen prostitute under the red neon light their teacher had purchased from eBay to better serve his muscle definition. As of late, it was becoming patently clear that Trelawney was using their sessions to realise the strange, sexual, Sirius-centric fantasies that knocked about in her head. She kept highlighting his nipples with her laser pen and sketching large, charcoal renderings of his genitals.

It made the class very uncomfortable, yet Sirius was unperturbed by Trelawney's lust. He didn't mind where attention came from, so long as it was directed at him.

"I was about to say – before we were so rudely interrupted – that you should go to the Swan if you go anywhere. My housemate works there, and she'll give you cheap drinks if you tell her you know me."

"Guaranteed?"

"Her dad is the landlord. Also –" She leaned toward Remus's easel, and lowered her voice to a whisper. " _She wants to meet that idiot_."

"Does she know he's not house-trained?"

"Mary doesn't care."

"But he studies _philosophy_."

"She's fond of the unemployable."

"So, you're under orders to ask about our Halloween plans?" said Remus, his lips curving into an amused grin. "Is that how this works?"

"Oh yeah," Lily replied, nodding like a bobblehead figure on a car dashboard. "There's a whole set of rules. I don't even _want_ to go out this weekend – I'm bloody _exhausted_ – but if I let my best friend's thirsty genitals take preference, next week she buys me a cake."

"And it's mandatory that you're there with her?"

"Yeah, because I know _you_ , and you know _him_ , and that's the introduction sorted. Women hunt in packs. Like lionesses."

Remus shifted away from his drawing, turning his knees towards Lily's chair. His light brown eyes – prematurely lined but decidedly sharp – were alight with interest. "This is fascinating."

"I know, right?"

"What kind of cake will she buy you? Does it depend on how the night goes?"

"There's no variation on the cake as long as I play my part."

"What's this about cake?" Sirius piped up, making them both jump. "And who has thirsty genitals?"

"One day, Sirius, I'm going to snap and throttle you with a roll of yarn from the textile cabinet," Lily threatened, and motioned for him to turn back around with her pencil.

"Lily and I were just arranging to have a drink at the weekend," Remus supplied. "She wants me to meet her friend Mary, who can get us cheap drinks, apparently."

"I assume I'm invited?"

"No," said Lily flatly.

"But you love my company!" Sirius cried.

"I'll concede that your company might be more enjoyable when I'm not forced to look at your arse for the evening."

"Then I'll cut a hole in the back of my jeans, just for you."

"That's the spirit," said Remus gently.

"Am I allowed to meet Mary too," said Sirius, grinning evilly into the void. "Or is that only for good boys?"

"Turn back around, you shit, you're interfering with my light."

"Evans! Stop criticising the model!" cried Trelawney, her usually soft voice cracking like a whip through the room. Two easels down, Jenn Costner jumped in fright and accidentally slashed a long, dark line through Sirius's spinal cord with her pencil.

"Professor?" she called out. "Can I get your help for a moment?"

While Trelawney swished her mauve peasant skirt and crossed the room in a flurry of scarves and jasmine perfume, Lily scooted her stool closer to Remus and bent her head towards him.

"She's definitely not a real professor, right?"

"Not a chance in hell," Remus deadpanned. "Do you have a plan in place for the weekend?"

"Yes, I do, which is why I need _you_ on the inside."

"That sounds deceptively exciting."

"You'll take that back when this is the central plot to the movie of your life."

"If this is the central plot to the movie of my life, I'll throw myself into the Nene river."

Trelawney straightened up from Jenn's easel and swept towards them with her nose aloft, sniffing the air for subpar artistry, so Lily and Remus returned to their drawings and tried to look busy. Their teacher had a tendency towards dramatics that increased tenfold when she caught somebody slacking.

"The hands have vastly improved from your last piece," she informed Lily, and tapped her sketch of Sirius's right hand with the end of a paintbrush. "You've been practising?"

"I've been sketching my own hand at home."

"Good girl," she said, and patted her on the back. "Lupin, how are we faring with perspective this week?"

Her chat with Remus on the length of Sirius's back compared to his various limbs took them through to the end of class, and Lily couldn't talk to him again until they'd packed up their easels, and Sirius disappeared into Trelawney's bedroom to put his clothes back on.

"So, Friday night," she began, extracting her hair from beneath her handbag strap, where it had gotten caught when she slung it on her shoulder. "Mary's working until 8, then her dad's letting her have the rest of the night off. Can you guys come in about an hour before? She'll have a reserved sign in one of the booths, so you'll have a place to sit."

"A reserved sign?" Remus's eyebrows travelled up his forehead. "Are you setting up our friends, or running a military operation?"

"Is there _really_ a difference?"

"The military might think so."

"Then they never met Mary Macdonald," she quipped, and placed a hand on Remus's shoulder. "I've got to dash off and get home in time for the groceries, but I'll see you both Friday?"

He gave her a thumbs-up, a very un-Remus-like gesture that made her laugh. "See you Friday."

"You're a star, Remus Lupin."

"Not really," he countered. "I'm in this for half of your cake."

* * *

Lily spent the rest of her Tuesday working on an assignment in the flat – though with the delightful interlude of a microwavable shepherd's pie that had a mildly soapy quality to its flavour – and found it had the enervating effect that only mind-numbing boredom can bring. By the time her housemate got in from work, sometime after midnight, Lily had fallen into a bleary slump on the sofa with her laptop on her knees and a cold, half-consumed mug of tea forming a ring on one of her textbooks.

"It's me," said Mary softly, tiptoeing through the door.

Shaken out of her stupor, Lily rubbed furiously at her overworked eyes and blinked in Mary's direction, while her friend kicked off her shoes and hung her jacket on the cardboard cutout of David Tennant that doubled as their coat stand. "Hey."

"Returneth I from ye olde boozer."

"David missed you."

"I missed him more," said Mary, with a saucy wink for the cutout. "Did the groceries get delivered?"

"Yeah, but they were out of barbecue chicken grills, so they gave us – er –" Her sleepy brain groped in the darkness for what she was looking for. "You know the other kind?"

"Reggae Reggae?"

"Honestly, I don't remember. I don't know what words are anymore."

"Burning the candle at both ends, are we?"

"You know me," said Lily, and stifled a yawn. "Living that party lifestyle."

Mary dragged herself across the room and threw herself into the armchair with an exaggerated sigh of relief. "My feet are _killing_ me."

"Same, only it's my head."

"Then go to bed. You don't need to wait up for me _every_ time I work late, you know."

"I know, and I promise I'll stop, just as soon as we eradicate rape and murder."

"I thought that's what you were doing?"

"Sadly, no. No more treats today," said Lily, squinting at the screen. "Commercial law is nevertheless suspicious of judicial discretion as exercised through equity. Why?"

"What?"

"Exactly," she sighed, and shut her laptop. "How was work?"

"Delightfully damp."

"That sounds like the world's worst porno."

"If only," Mary replied, with a lazy snort to express her amusement, slouching sideways in her chair. She shimmied her bra out from under her shirt, took a sniff and tossed it across the room. "The new guy smashed a bottle of Jameson, so cleaning that up was a fun half-hour, and then some idiots were asking for a lock-in – oh, and I saw Arlène, and she told me to say hello –"

"Hi, Arlène," said Lily dully.

"More importantly, how was my darling future husband today?"

"Naked and irritating."

"Same as always, eh? I like that he's consistent."

"Consistent in shaking his arse in my face and telling me I can't touch the goods, you mean?"

"He's not still doing that, is he?"

"I think the murderous look in my eyes from lack of sleep might have put him off."

"Atta girl."

"Also –" Lily yawned again, and stretched out her legs to regain the feeling she'd lost during her cramped, impromptu nap – the sofa was not built for sprawling. "He _is_ going to be wearing clothes on Friday, so try to reign in your disappointment."

Mary righted herself instantly. A tendril of dark hair had escaped her ponytail, and she flipped it away from her eyes. "Friday's happening?"

"Friday's happening."

She squealed, and leapt from the chair with an energy that Lily could not for the life of her have imitated at that moment unless the flat spontaneously combusted.

" _You_!" Mary slid across the faux-wood floor in her stockinged feet and dropped a firm, protracted kiss on Lily's forehead. "I fucking love you!"

"Yeah, I know, I'm a cool kid."

"Finally, my marble statue, I shall divest you of your undergarments."

"Don't come crying to me if he disappoints –"

"He _won't_ , I've seen your drawings."

"I wouldn't put that much faith in my artwork if I were you."

Mary, however, was too transported to care, launched by her second-wind into a hormone-driven need to groove like a drunken uncle at a wedding.

" _Let's talk about sex, baby,_ " she sang, twirling her way around the coffee table, her arms pumping up and down like a time-delayed sprinter. " _Let's talk about you and me_ –"

" _Let's talk about all the good things and the bad things that may be_ –"

" _Let's talk about_ – oh –" She stopped spinning, and placed a hand on her chest. "Heartburn."

Lily snorted.

"I got McDonald's after work, don't fucking laugh at me," Mary grumbled, then laughed at herself. She hobbled over to the couch and stretched her hands out in front of her. "Come on. Time for bed."

"I don't want to get up."

"I'll keep dancing if you don't."

"Gassy liar," Lily accused, but she allowed Mary to pull her to her feet, clutching the laptop to her hip with one hand. "Remember, no McDonald's when you shag the marble statue."

"Can you put that on a t-shirt?"

"If I can wear it to your wedding."

* * *

Friday night, though a few days early, doubled as Halloween for students and the gainfully employed, and so Friday saw the city overrun with a battalion of costumed revellers – scantily clad nurses, assorted superheroes, a gaggle of Harley Quinns and Jon Snows aplenty – and in amongst the rabble was Lily, all dressed down with somewhere to go.

Lily was punctual as a rule, and as such she stepped into the Swan at exactly the stroke of 'after they arrive but before I finish work,' as instructed by Mary. She quickly spotted Remus in the Good Booth, so named for its proximity to the bar, the toilets and the plasma screen. Across from her friend sat Sirius, recognisable by the back of his head alone, and with them, she supposed, were the friends from London. A small, blonde man with a rodent-like face sat to the right of Remus, and with Sirius was a mystery fourth, sporting a pair of flashing plastic antlers atop a head of dark, electrified hair.

She ignored them and strode to the bar, and Mary, who had pinned a synthetic braid into her hair and come as Lara Croft.

"Where the fuck is your costume?" she demanded, after extracting herself from a crowd of punters and giving Lily a disgusted once-over.

"I've come as myself."

"Well, you haven't, because Lily's hair is longer than that."

"Lily got a haircut," Lily retorted, and squeezed through Super Mario and a half-arsed Michael Myers to secure a spot at the bar. She fluffed the ends of her new bob, into which casual, beachy waves had been painstakingly styled. "Because Lily is tired, and needs to study, and isn't getting anything else out of this deal."

"Except cake."

"Not immediately, and anyway, I spent the rest of my fun money on my hair so I couldn't afford a costume."

"You lie. You hate costumes."

"Well, since I'm only here to enhance _you_ , my love, there wasn't any point in dressing up."

"Not the rose, but near the rose," Mary quoted, a crinkle forming between her eyebrows. "What's that from again?"

"I'm genuinely too shattered to remember."

"You're so extra," said Mary sweetly, and reached over to ruffle her hair. "And pretty, even if you _are_ dressed like a substitute teacher."

"Can't that be my costume?"

"No, you tosser. Go over and say hello to the guys."

"But I only just got here."

"I don't _care_ , here's been here twenty minutes and I've already seen a bunch of other girls making eyes at him."

"You know, I prefer you when you're not fixated on a bloody man," Lily grumbled, and opened her handbag. "Hang on while I text Remus and tell him I'm here. Sirius can't know you pointed him out because he'll get –"

"He'll get all arrogant and assume he occupies a position of power," Mary parroted, and tugged at the straps of her tank top, no doubt to enhance an ample cleavage that already needed no aerodynamic assistance. "I know."

"This is true."

"But it doesn't matter."

"Believe me, it will with this bloke."

"I just want a shag, not a meaningful relationship."

"And you'll get a _better_ shag if he feels the need to impress you," said Lily, having fished her phone out from beneath her keys, her purse and a box of Anadin Extra. "Can you get me a Coke?"

"Coke and?"

"Ice."

"It's Friday night, you bore."

"Put a twisty straw in it, then," she countered, tapping a message into her and Remus's WhatsApp thread.

 _I'm at the bar with Mary. Text me when you're ready and I'll pretend I just saw you guys (V essential as she MUST appear very busy and important and unaware that Sirius exists)_

She hit the send button and smiled at Mary, who was spraying watered-down Coke into a tumbler and scowling darkly.

"No glass bottle today?"

"You don't deserve one. Being set up by you is like being set up by my nan."

"Your nan would _definitely_ try to set you up with Remus instead of Sirius, so that's not even true."

Mary slid the Coke across the bar and shooed away a mad scientist who had approached her for service. "I'm off-duty, mate. Go ask the guy in the banana costume."

"But he told me to ask you."

"Then go back and tell him I'll kick his arse," said Mary moodily. "I'm talking to my friend."

Lily's phone buzzed, and she checked Remus's response.

 _All set. We're in one of the booths. Turn around and we're on your right._

"Is that him?"

"Yup," said Lily, and turned around to wave at Remus. "Gird your loins, Macdonald."

And then.

And then.

 _And then._


	3. Lightning Bolt

**Chapter 2**

 **Lightning Bolt**

Lily was a girl raised on love stories, but she never put much stock in the lessons they taught her.

Her parents were romantics both, a pair of childhood sweethearts who lived the dream instead of succumbing to life's harsh realities. Most first loves, logic dictated, were doomed to fail. The tumultuous space between child and adult saw so much change that it was oft impossible for teenage lovers to keep what they had as time went on, but her parents held on tight. Though they had their problems, like any couple would, they grew always in the same direction, merry flowers stretching their necks towards sunlight, and raised both their daughters to believe that _their_ destinies were bound to the same lucky star.

Petunia fell for it hook, line and sinker, and hastily married the first man to ask her, but Lily was born with a sceptical skin on her soul, and wasn't as easily convinced.

Her mum was a big fan of romantic movies - the gushier, the better - especially the ones where two characters, whose eyes meet across a crowded room, fall madly in love at first sight. "There's the lightning bolt!" she'd cry, excited as a girl, when Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan met atop the Empire State Building, or when Jack saw Rose on the deck of the Titanic. "That's how I felt when I met your dad! That's how you know!"

Even as a child, precocious, irritating know-it-all that she was, Lily knew that such a thing was a _silly_ thing to believe in, but it made her mother happy, which was good enough for her. She'd simply button her mouth and observe the less heaven-sent romances of the world - like Cass next door, always sporting a fresh bruise or a cut lip, or Sev's parents, or the girls at school who cried in the toilets over boys who wronged them and boys who never noticed. Love was not a ringing victory, but often a struggle, often thankless, and often a lesson in perseverance.

Love was a thing she dearly wanted, but not so much that she'd make herself a slave to idealistic fantasies. Stories were just stories, her dear, devoted parents were long since dead, and Lily was standing in a pub in Cambridge, not the observation deck of the Empire State Building, clutching a teddy bear to her chest and waiting for a sweet, cherub-faced kid to arrive and lead her to the man of her dreams.

So when she turned around and locked eyes with _him_ , that guy, _the_ guy, the one who was to befall her like a hurricane at sea, she knew she hadn't fallen in love.

She'd simply been struck by lightning.

* * *

Lily whipped back around and fixed Mary with a look of wide-eyed urgency. "Who the hell is that?"

"What?"

"Who _is_ that?"

"Who is who?"

She jerked her head in the direction of the Good Booth with as much discretion as she could afford because he'd seen her, and might still be looking. At least, she hoped he was looking. She also hoped he wasn't. _"Him."_

"Him?" said Mary, with a coy smile. "Like the goth band?"

"You shouldn't smirk at me when you do that, you know."

"You should make sense when you talk."

"You know I was talking about a boy -"

 _"Boy?"_

"A man," Lily corrected, horrified to find herself blushing. "Whatever, the guy at Remus's booth."

"How the fuck am I supposed to know when I can't even tell you which one Remus is?"

"Because bartenders are supposed to know people?"

"I'm a full-time student who works for her daddy, not Ted Danson in _Cheers,_ " said Mary, with a haughty toss of her head. "Which one are you talking about?"

"The one next to Sirius."

"With the glasses?"

"Yes."

"And the antlers?"

 _"Yes."_

"What about him?"

 _Thump, thump, thump_ went her hungry little heart. "He's gorgeous."

Mary took a dainty backward step and raised herself to her tiptoes, craning to take a proper look at the Good Booth, but Lily spied no light of agreement in her eyes, which was as much a relief as it was offensive. On one hand, what was wrong with him? How dare Mary look so unimpressed when the bloke she fancied liked to strut about Trelawney's living room in the nude and unironically owned a red velvet smoking jacket?

On the other hand, she didn't want Mary to think him gorgeous. In fact, it would have suited Lily nicely if Mary and every other woman in the room could just _back off_ for a minute while she got her bearings.

"I don't see it," said Mary decidedly. She spun around to swipe a bottle of Southern Comfort from a shelf above her head, and picked up a glass with her other hand. "I mean, he's okay? Decent hair, I suppose, but not for me."

"Yeah, well, I don't see it in Sirius, but here we are."

"Yes, here we are, doomed never to fight over the same man. How unfortunate."

"We wouldn't fight over a bloke, even if we did have the same taste."

"Whatever," said Mary, as she poured herself a generous helping of liqueur. She topped it up with more Coke and took a quick swig, frowning into the bottom of the glass. "Why are you so annoyed?"

"I'm not annoyed, I'm surprised." Lily wanted to turn around and take another look, but she had an awful feeling that he'd catch her staring if she did. She had an eerie feeling that somebody's eyes were boring into the back of her neck. "Remus never mentioned having a friend who looked like that."

"Probably because Remus doesn't want to fuck his friends, but what do I know?"

An irritable sigh escaped Lily's lips.

This wasn't the right time for her to meet a guy. She wanted to introduce Mary to Sirius and go home, and she had work to do and, anyway, she didn't even date. It was one of her rules while she was at university. A one-hour art class or a night at the pub were small, manageable increments in a busy week, but maintaining a relationship took time and effort that she couldn't spare, and Lily didn't _do_ casual flings. She was in or she was out, and that was how she'd always worked.

Assuming he'd even want her, which was a stretch, though a small voice in Lily's head – her mother's voice, in truth - was telling her that the thing she felt when their eyes met was not imagined.

"What do I do now?" she said.

Mary managed to convey great disdain with one flick of her long, curled lashes. "You do exactly what you said you'd do, which is to say, go over there and carry out the plan _you_ made up."

"With him sitting there?"

"He's not going to bite you, he's just a bloke."

"I know, but, it's like," she began, and found herself with nothing else to say, except that she wouldn't mind being bitten – a weird thing to pop up in one's head, and totally untrue. She wouldn't let a man bite her under any circumstance. Even that one. Maybe.

"Like you're mentally subnormal and I hate you?"

"No, I mean like –" She clucked her tongue in exasperation. "Okay, imagine that you're a yogurt."

"Don't know where you're going with this," said Mary, and took another mouthful of her drink. "But sure."

"And Sirius is granola."

"Okay?"

"Imagine that together, you and Sirius make a delicious granola yogurt, which is fine, because I've got the recipe, but _then_ , suddenly, there's a jalapeño in the room."

"What are you, a fucking chef?"

"No, but I can't make a granola yogurt with a jalapeño, it's too distracting. I didn't sign up for a jalapeño."

"It really sounds like you want me and Sirius to threesome with the jalapeño."

"No, I want the jalapeño for myself."

"Obviously."

"Therein lies the problem."

"You've taken one bloody glance at the jalapeño."

"And you'd only seen a couple of _drawings_ of Sirius before you decided to seduce him, so don't even start with that."

Whatever Mary had been preparing to say was forgotten in the wake of the begrudging smile that graced her lips. "Touché, mon cheri."

"Thanks."

"But like, can you _please_ just go over?" Mary implored, leaning across the bar with her best 'adore me' face. "All you need to do is introduce me and give me about half an hour to settle in with them, and then you can go home and study and be as boring as you like, alright? Please? You don't have to start dating the guy."

"As if I'd have the time."

"And, also, isn't he one of the London friends?"

"Probably."

"Well, it's not like he's sticking around anyway, so there's no problem."

That was true, and it rather decided things, should Jalapeño Boy happen to fancy her. Her aversion to casual dalliances extended to one-night stands, in which she didn't partake. She had been raised by a mother who, whilst being thoroughly supportive of all things romantic, frequently regaled her with warnings like 'don't let your body be a trash receptacle for men' or 'they won't buy the cow when they can get the milk for free,' as well as buzzwords like 'self-respect!' and 'decency!' all of which she knew – at least, her logical self knew – was outdated, misogynistic bullshit that didn't apply any longer, but the idea of taking some guy home for a good time still left her with a strange, elusive feeling of shame.

"Fine," she agreed, and did a neat, unpractised little pirouette – a cunning disguise for what was truly a failed attempt to turn around and walk over. "No, I can't."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm dressed like a librarian."

"Substitute teacher."

"Oh _god_ ," Lily groaned, and slumped against the bar. "Somehow that's worse."

"I thought you weren't going to go for him?"

"Well, yes," she shamefacedly admitted. "But I still want him to fancy me."

"What've you got on under the cardigan?"

"Turtle t-shirt."

"You're fucking hopeless."

"Thanks. Now I've got the confidence I need to face any obstacle."

"I mean, almost hopeless," Mary amended, and dipped her head to the side to cast a critical eye over Lily's clothes. "Your jeans are fine. Hair, obviously, better than fine. Face is perfection, as per fucking usual. You just need shoes and a top. We can go upstairs and get something of Eliza's."

"Won't she mind?"

"Doubt she'll notice. She's got too many clothes. Anyway, she loves you, so she won't care."

"But she's seventeen."

"And?"

"Aren't her clothes a little young for me?"

"You're twenty-one, not fifty," said Mary, and lifted the hatch to allow Lily to come behind the bar. "Come on, let's get you sexy."

* * *

The two floors above the pub housed the rest of the Macdonald clan, including Mary's fashion-obsessed younger sister, whose wardrobe proved itself to be a treasure trove of I Don't Know What I Want to Happen With This Guy ensembles, for the woman on the move who can't make up her mind.

It was a niche market, sure, but it did exist.

Not that Lily, who had naively believed herself to be in control when she agreed to change, had any say in the matter. Mary took charge from the outset and gave her a grand total of two choices – booby or backless, then presented her with a flimsy piece of violet satin when she opted for the latter. Lily then experienced the totally novel sensation of having her breasts taped into her clothes.

"This is silly," she said, while Mary applied a quick dusting of powder to her collarbone. "I want to go home."

She had an equity paper to finish. She had sleep to catch up on. She had a fish pie to chuck in the microwave. She had Horlicks, and chocolate digestives, and a warm, comfortable bed to sleep in. She had a _onesie_ , for crying out loud. She had committed herself to a certain lifestyle, in which she was completely happy and comfortable.

Alas, the onesie was not to be, and Lily was dressed in an outfit which, whilst flattering, made it patently clear that Mary, at least, had plans for her and Jalapeño Boy.

"Oh, shush," said Mary. "You'd rather be downstairs flirting."

"Also, this top is backless _and_ booby, and you said it would be one or the other."

"Changed my mind."

"Go big or go home," croaked Eliza, who was in bed with bronchitis, wrapped in a makeshift tomb of blankets and cushions.

"Fine. I'll go home."

"Not unless you take Jalapeño Boy with you."

"Don't even start -"

"Or just get a snog, even!" cried Mary, defensive but amused.

"Unless he's gay," said Eliza.

"Yeah, gay is the loophole."

"Or if he doesn't fancy me."

"If he's not gay," said Eliza flatly. "He will fancy you."

"You were a model, for crying out loud."

"Jesus Christ, Mary, one British Gas advert when I was nine does not make me a model –"

"But you worked those dungarees!"

"Do _not_ go telling him that I was a model," Lily warned her, and adjusted her cleavage. "It's _not_ true and it's so embarrassing, having to explain that to people. They always think I'm lying to get attention."

To which, Mary only harrumphed, while Eliza gave a wheezy laugh and instructed Lily to ditch the twinset and pearls.

Some friends she had.

* * *

Because she was wearing a handkerchief that masqueraded as clothing, Lily felt that she should have been colder, but found herself rather flushed when she returned to the pub.

She couldn't blame the heat entirely on the swelling crowd that surrounded the bar, because there was that stupid, distracting boy over there. Stupid lightning bolts. Stupid, unrealistic expectations fostered by romantic movies that she'd _thought_ she was sensible enough to ignore, but were flitting about in her brain like twittering birds.

And Mary expected her to glide over like a carrier pigeon and facilitate a group hang as coolly as if Sirius wasn't sitting next to the fucking _sun._

Mary was a terrible friend. Screw Mary.

Yet, off she flew, fuelled by a sense of obligation, and by the mystery cocktail Mary had thrown together at the bar – one of her own creations – while Lily was changing into a pair of Eliza's heels. She arrived, quite fortuitously, at the precise moment that the rat-faced man sneezed violently into the palm of his hand.

"Bless you," she said, and four pairs of eyes turned on her at once.

 _"Wow,"_ said Remus, while his sneezy friend blushed redder than a beetroot, and Sirius let out a shrill, appreciative wolf-whistle.

But _her_ guy.

Her guy was even fitter up close, were that possible, and she found herself gazing into his eyes like a deer in a steel trap, or one of those stupid girls from those _stupid_ movies, though she was far less eager to escape the dangers he posed.

She couldn't discern the colour of his eyes behind his glasses, only that they were lovely, sort of mischievous-looking - young eyes, lively eyes – and that his jaw could have cut a diamond, and that when his lips curled into an innocuous half smile, he had a perfect dimple in one cheek, and that she had never seen anything like his _hair,_ which was jet black, abundantly thick, and as chaotic as if he had climbed out of a whirlwind. She would have been sold on his hair alone, but the rest of him was exquisite.

Her heart drummed a staccato beat against her ribs, and she wished that she could hide beneath her cardigan like an awkward hermit, but Mary had nicked it.

"Hey!" she said, once the moment had passed, dragging her eyes away from him with a bright smile that preserved her self-respect. "How are you all doing?"

"Pretty well," said Remus pleasantly, though his brows were slanted in such a way that reminded her, thanks to their year-long friendship, that he knew her well enough to know that she didn't go to bars dressed the way she was dressed. "And you?"

"Half-dressed, apparently."

"And we're all very grateful," said Sirius, with the kind of smirk that would surely get him punched in the dick one day, hopefully by Lily, though she would have been quite content to pay a willing volunteer for a front row seat to his comeuppance.

"What an ironic twist, since I hardly recognise you with clothes _on."_

"Plenty of people would pay good money to see me naked."

"I do pay, you idiot," Lily reminded him. "The class is £10 a week."

"Then I don't know why you're complaining."

Lily smacked him gently on the back of the head. "May I be introduced to your friends, please? I'm sure they're both a lot more interesting than you."

"I'll leave that for you to decide," said Remus. "Lily, this is Peter –"

"Hi!" said the blushing, rat-faced boy, and practically flung himself across the table in his haste to stick his hand out, splashing the wood with the contents of his drink. "Peter Pettigrew."

Lily almost expected him to follow it up with an 'at your service,' but when he didn't, she shook his hand, and as his moist, warm palm met hers, she abruptly remembered that he had just sneezed into it.

"Lovely," she said.

"And this is James Potter," Remus continued, eyeing her warily.

Of course. James. What a name. What a classic, timeless, handsome-bastard name.

She wiped her hand on the back of her jeans and said, "Hi," in a breathless, Come-Rip-My-Bodice-You-Hot-Stud kind of way that instantly annoyed her.

"Hi," said James, handsomely. As if he was just this handsome all the time. As if it were nothing special, and being handsome was just a casual thing he liked to do.

How _dare_ he?

"It's nice to meet you both," she said.

"I'd, er, shake your hand," James continued, with a pained sort of expression, and pointed at the bowl that sat between him and Sirius, empty but for some clotted barbecue sauce. "But I just ate a bunch of hot wings, and my hands are a bit -"

"He means he's not a pig like Peter," Sirius interjected.

"What?!"

"You shook her hand right after you sneezed into it, Pete," said Remus gently. "I thought we'd reserved that kind of behaviour for people I want to get rid of, not valued friends and classmates."

"I'm so sorry!" Peter cried, aghast. "Do you want a lemon-scented wipe? I could run to KFC –"

"It's fine, but thank you for offering," said Lily, as kindly as she could. The nearest KFC was over a mile away, but the bathrooms were within skipping distance. This kid needed to calm himself down before he gave himself a headache. He was making her feel entirely undramatic in comparison.

"I'm such an idiot," Peter mumbled, and buried his head in his hands – one clean, one, of course, covered in sneeze. Lily almost laughed, but instead her eyes moved to land on James's face, drawn there as if by a magnetic force, and she caught him watching her.

"Hi," he said, and swallowed air. "Again."

Where had he _come_ from? Had he been built in a lab just for her? Sent from space? Had she inadvertently ordered him online in a drunken stupor, and was she objectifying him by thinking such a thing? He was handsome in such an obvious way that it was almost insulting – the kind of beauty that people repeatedly liked to attribute to Sirius, even though Lily had never been able to see it. James Potter had it, though. He had it in spades.

She smiled at him. "How are you liking Cambridge?"

"More every minute," he said, and smiled back. Damn, butterflies exploding. "This place does good hot wings."

"I know the chef personally, so I'll pass on your compliments," she replied, and shifted her cocktail to her unclean hand so she could rest her clean one on Remus's shoulder. Sweet, stabilising Remus, the sedative of humans. "Speaking of people I know, are you cool with Mary and I joining you guys? She's free in about five minutes."

"Sure," Remus agreed. "I think we've got the biggest table here."

"You can thank her for that, and for free drinks, which I'm happy to report are pending."

"Free?" said Sirius, his ears pricked up like a dog's. "I thought you said cheap?"

"I was so happy to see you wearing clothes for a change that I convinced Mary to waive the cost," she sweetly replied. "Also, because you're going to be very helpful and help me get a round in."

"Says who?"

Lily ignored him and smiled around at the rest of the table. She was doing so well on the outside, though all sorts of things were going on in various parts of her body, and baser instincts were telling her to make like Peter and throw herself across the table. "What's everyone having?"

"Gin and tonic," said Remus.

"I dunno," said Peter. "What's that you're drinking?"

"Oh." Lily looked down at her cocktail. She didn't have a clue what it was called or what was in it, save a dash of lime, which was quite refreshing. "It's… um. It's a Jalapeño Boy. My friend invented it."

"What's in it?"

"Oh, you'll have to try one if you want to know."

"Alright, then," said Peter eagerly.

"What about you, hot wings?" she said, turning back to James with a smile that should have known better.

He smiled at her. Again. That was a running tally of three smiles, just for her. "I'll have what you're having."

"Cool," she said, and thumped Sirius on the arm. "Come on. You can help me carry the drinks back."

Sirius grumbled for the sake of grumbling, always keen to be party to some drama or other, but free drinks were free drinks, so he stood up and followed her to the bar. Mary was busy serving a couple of Spice Girls and a bloke with a horse head mask, so Lily bade Sirius to wait with her, and hopped onto an available stool.

"You look very beautiful today," he said, in a bald, clinical sort of way. He was stating a fact, not trying to flatter. "The haircut suits you."

"Thanks."

"And I, of course, am also beautiful."

"You're passable," she wryly quipped, twisting the stool from side to side beneath her bottom. "Actually, I _do_ really like your jacket. You look much better with normal clothes on."

"Not a fan of my fancy robes?"

She wrinkled her nose. "Not really my thing, mate."

"Unlike James," he said, and slipped his hands into his jacket pockets. "Who definitely _is_ your thing."

She stopped twisting and fixed him with a look that she hoped could be interpreted as disbelief, rather than shock. The flush of her skin did not support her in this endeavour. "No, he isn't?"

"He is, though."

"What are you on about?"

Sirius grinned one of his evil grins. Maybe she would be the one to punch his dick, after all. "For some reason, my ample charms are lost on you, so I'm out, and for a second I thought it might be Remus, but no –"

"Sirius, what –"

" – if it had been Remus, or me, for that matter, you would have come in dressed like that, but you didn't. You ran off with your mate and got changed, which means it was someone you saw here, and we can rule Peter out because he's a fucking disaster, which means you fancy James."

"I genuinely don't know what you're on about."

"You don't need to lie to _me_. We're all friends here."

"Remus is my friend," she reminded him coldly. "You're some bloke whose arse I have to look at once a week."

"James will show you his arse if you ask him nicely."

"Shut up," she snapped, fresh out of retorts, and pretended to be deeply invested in her phone until Mary came over, having finished serving the Spice Girls and adjusted her tank top in such a way that her breasts were more prominent than ever.

"Hey babes!" she blithely sang, despite having never used that word in her life. Attractive men made strange beasts of them both. "Did you say hi to your friend?"

"I did, and I said we'd have a drink with them, if that's alright?"

Mary shrugged. "Fine by me. What's everyone having?"

"Three more of these," said Lily, pointing at her half-empty glass. "Plus a gin and tonic, and whatever this fucker wants."

"This fucker is hurt by your language."

"And could you grab me one of those cloths to clean my hand?" Lily added. "Also a knife to kill _him_ with?"

"A knife?" said Mary, blinking.

"Or any kind of weapon."

"Why on earth would you want to hurt him?" she said, handing over the aforementioned cloth. "He seems harmless enough."

"So very harmless," said Sirius, leaning over the bar with an easy grin. "You must be the lovely Mary, about whom I've heard so much."

"And you must be Sirius," she replied coyly. "About whom I've also heard so much."

"All good, I hope?"

Mary shook her head, pouting. "Sadly, quite the opposite."

"I beg you, don't let my poor reputation influence your opinion -"

The last thing Lily wanted to witness was a Sirius Black in his natural habitat, demonstrating his mating cry, so she glanced over her shoulder as she wrung her hand clean and noticed that James had vanished from the booth.

"I'm going back to the table," she said, turning back to Mary and Sirius with a flat tone to her voice that begged no discussion. "You're finished work in a minute, right? You two can carry the drinks, once you're finished projecting pheromones at one another."

Before either of them could respond, Lily tossed the cloth on the bar, grabbed her half-finished cocktail, and sprang for freedom. Remus and Peter were discussing something in low tones at the booth, but looked up when she slid onto the seat opposite them, occupying the spot which had previously been held by James.

"Well," she said darkly, and slouched back against the plush leather seat, popping her straw into her mouth. _"They've_ certainly hit it off."

"Isn't that what you wanted?" said Remus.

Lily made a noncommittal noise and set about draining her glass. She needed to reach a state of complete inebriation if she was going to survive a night of Mary and Sirius's raucous lovemaking. Mary was loud in bed, and she couldn't imagine that Sirius was a shrinking violet. He was probably a loud masturbator. He probably found _himself_ arousing. "I'd want it more if he weren't such a shit. Where's your other friend?"

Remus's lips quirked upwards. He knew. They all knew. _Everybody_ knew and they were going to torture her. "You mean James?"

"Was that his name?" she said airily. "I hadn't remembered."

"Oh, hadn't you? I was under the impression that you two had also hit it off."

Lily scoffed into her cocktail. "Why? Because I called him 'hot wings' and find him very attractive?"

"It was your admittance to finding him attractive that really tipped me off," said Remus, with an amused smile. Really, there were far too many smug people in Lily's life, and she needed to make new friends. "Though you were a difficult nut to crack, I'll admit."

"That was strictly off-record."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning it's inadmissible in court, unless you'd recorded it, which you'd need my permission to do, or if I'd signed a statement, and _that's_ not going to happen."

"Lily's a law student," and Remus to Peter, whose mouth formed a small 'o' of surprise. "But you still find him attractive?"

"A little."

"It was 'very' a minute ago."

"I grow less interested with each passing minute."

"Lucky he's gone home, then."

Lily sat bolt upright, her straw toppling out of the glass. "Not really?!"

Remus laughed, though Peter looked uncomfortable. She hoped he didn't fancy her. That would have been awkward as arse, especially if James also fancied her but promised Peter that he wouldn't get in the way and then –

What was she doing? She didn't even date. This was a non-issue.

She needed to drink more.

"He hasn't gone home," said Remus. "In fact, he's coming back now. Hey."

"Hey," she heard him say – even his _voice_ was delicious – and stared resolutely into her drink.

"Someone took your seat, mate."

"Oh, really?" he said, and then, "Hi there."

She looked up. He had taken the antlers off.

He had also years off her life, if the way her heart slapped around in her chest was any indication. A trained assassin could not have done a better job at seeing her dead by the end of the night.

"Hi." She hastily put down her drink. "Sorry for taking your spot."

"That's alright. Can I sit next to you?"

"Sure."

He gave her another one of those crooked, dimpled half-smiles, dropped into the seat beside her and immediately held out his hand. "I'm James Potter, by the way."

"Oh." She found herself blushing again. "Remus already told –"

"I know," he said. "But I was having a barbecue sauce situation and I'd rather we be properly introduced, now that I've washed my hands and I'm not going to contaminate you."

Oh _god_. He just had to go and be charming on top of everything else, as if it wasn't bad enough that Lily was drowning in the blackest depths of her own thirst. Had she _ever_ found another man this attractive? Aside from her five-year-old self's crush on the animated Aladdin, her mind was drawing a total blank.

"If you insist," she delicately agreed, and took his hand, determined to stay cool. "Lily Evans."

"It's really nice to meet you."

"Likewise," she agreed, smiling. "Thank you for being such a gentleman."

"Am I a gentleman?"

"I'd say so."

"Brilliant," he said, grinning. "Since I'm bound to make a fool out of myself in front of you at least five times in the next hour, I'd love it if you could remember that."

"Do you often make a fool of yourself in front of girls?"

"Well." He shrugged. "Only the ones I want to impress."

She had been wrong about him. _So_ wrong. She hadn't been struck by lightning at all.

She'd been hit by an electrical storm.


	4. Bang Bang

**Author's Note:** The song for this chapter is "Don't Count on Me," by Nouvellas.

 **Chapter 3**

 **Bang Bang**

"So you're a law student?"

"Guilty as charged," Lily admitted. "I promise that wasn't a pun."

He laughed. "Pun or not, that's pretty cool subject to study."

"You would think so," she said, toying idly with her straw. "But the truth is, it's mostly reading, and obsessing over tiny details until you want to cry your eyes out, and even more reading, and being asked by people you know if you can get them out of traffic tickets."

"People actually ask you that?"

"About as much as they ask Remus if he can psychoanalyse them, and if you've ever spent more than thirty minutes in his company, you'll know how often that happens."

"D'you think maybe every elective comes with one really shitty joke that other people seem to find hilarious?" said James thoughtfully. "People are always making cracks about how studying philosophy makes Sirius inherently unemployable."

"I mean, since I say that about Sirius all the time, I wouldn't call it a _joke,_ per se," said Lily lightly. "That's just the truth."

"Because he's a philosophy student, or because he's Sirius?"

"Now, see, I've pondered this at length—"

"You have?"

"—and I think his obvious lack of employability would be offset by his willingness to sleep his way to the top."

"He _does_ hate bureaucracy—"

"Whereas I deal in it, so how he and I are mates is a mystery," Lily finished, with a toss of her hair. She hadn't been so mindful of her posture since the short-lived ballet lessons she'd taken as a child, but she hadn't allowed Mary to affix her boobs to fabric with an adhesive for them to go unnoticed. "And, to answer your original point, it's really not cool at all. I mean, maybe if you're watching _Suits_ or something—"

"Or _Judge Judy."_

"Oh my god, I adore that woman."

"Judge Judith Sheindlin is a gift to this earth," said James, with a smile that beggared belief, her carnal fantasy made flesh and blood. "I'd probably pay her to roast me, if I could."

"What, you mean for fun?"

"Seriously, she could sit me down and tear me a new one, and I'd probably feel like I'd been spiritually cleansed afterwards."

"Like a mental colonoscopy?"

"Exactly like that."

"You've really made it sound like you'd get off on being ripped on by Judge Judy, you know."

"Probably," he admitted. "I mean, if I were fifty years older and as single as I am now, she'd be the first person I called for a good time."

"If you were fifty years older," said Lily, plucking at the hint he'd dropped like a breadcrumb in a forest. "You wouldn't be here, and that would be a diabolical shame."

He grinned at her, and she felt like utter filth, and that felt amazing.

She was two drinks in and hadn't gotten sloppy, for the dulling effect of the concoction she was drinking – strong stuff, whatever it was – was offset by the rush of intense attraction and the razor-blade alertness that came with a tête-à-tête of verbal foreplay. James Potter had proved himself a sharp one, and Lily needed him to feel as if he had to keep up with her, and was managing, because of the endorphins, or the adrenaline, or whatever chemical it was that had taken over the reins inside her body – reminding her that she _was_ a body, and that a body had needs.

They'd hit it off, as Remus so succinctly surmised, almost instantly, and so she'd zeroed in on James and made him her mission, with fluttering lashes and lingering looks, essentially taking possession of him for the night, turning their six-man booth into a secluded corner for two, at which four other people just happened to be sitting, neatly sequestered outside their hormone-fuelled bubble.

It was incredibly rude, but he was _so_ fit, and staid, sensible student Lily never got to feel like this, so she let herself go with it.

"Just out of curiosity," said James, his elbow balanced on the seat-back behind him, bent at an angle as he ruffled his hair. "Why would it be a shame—"

"A _diabolical_ shame."

"Yeah, that. Why would it be such a diabolical shame if I weren't here?"

"I couldn't possibly tell you, I'm afraid," she sighed, and picked up her cocktail to take a dainty sip. "I might, though, once I've had more to drink."

"And on that subject, I was just about to pop to the bar."

* * *

When he was three drinks in and Lily was halfway through a fourth, James circled back around to her studies, a topic that seemed to interest him, though he may have been pretending for the sake of impressing her. If he was, she didn't care. She normally didn't walk around wearing minuscule scraps of satin on her upper body, so she could hardly judge him for posturing, and more importantly, she had his complete and undivided attention, which was exactly what she wanted.

"But _you_ find law interesting, right?"

"I do," she admitted, and fluffed the ends of her hair. She kept forgetting that it had been cut, and was experiencing frequent moments of surprise when she reached to twirl a lock around her finger and found nothing but air. "I really do, which makes me a huge geek, I know—"

"Nah, it doesn't."

"When I was really little, what I wanted most in the world was to be a detective. You know, the kind with a big trench coat and an axe to grind with society?"

"Like Columbo?"

"Exactly like Columbo, except prettier, and working for myself, not the LAPD. Also I hate cigars."

"Obviously, those differences were implied."

"Only then I grew up, right? And I realised that private detectives make their money following cheating spouses around, and there's no way I could do that for a living, it's too depressing."

The ghost of a laugh left James's lips. "Would a few grisly murders be less depressing?"

"Yes, actually, because at least I know they're an anomaly—"

"Unless you're actually Columbo."

"—but following around three or four cheating partners a week?" Lily shook her head, though it hurt to move it so quickly. "I'd give up on true love after a month."

"We definitely can't have that," he said immediately.

"So I decided on law," she finished. "And so far, my plan's been working out, mostly, aside from never having free time."

"What is it?"

"What?"

"Your plan," James clarified. "What does it look like?"

"Oh," she said, and tapped a slow, disjointed rhythm on the table. "Well, this is my last year as an undergrad, and once I'm finished with that I'm going to get my PhD, and after that I want to take my BPTC—"

"What's a—"

"Bar Professional Training Course," she swiftly supplied. "Then I want to specialise in human rights law, become a celebrated human rights barrister by the time I'm thirty-five and then, I think, the next step is to marry George Clooney?"

The laugh she elicited from him was no mere ghost this time, but full-on, and warm, bubbling up from the pit of his stomach and sending him lurching towards the table. That was what he did when he laughed properly, she had noticed, leaned forwards, as if he was collapsing in on himself.

"George Clooney?" he said, once the initial burst of mirth had passed. "Really?"

"What's wrong with George Clooney?!"

"Nothing's _wrong_ with him," said James reasonably. "Except he's way too old for you—"

"Age is just a number."

"And you're way too good-looking for him."

"The general public would likely disagree."

"And he married, right?"

"That's a minor detail."

"So, wait, you're going to marry him _after_ you turn thirty-five and you're... what age are you now?"

"Twenty-one."

"Same!"

"Twenty-two at the end of January."

"End of March," said James, with yet another earth-shattering grin, and for the hundredth time in an evening she felt a hard, aching pulse, buried deep down, and a need to grab him by the collar of his shirt and give his lips something better to do. "So you're an older woman, are you?"

"Oh, _barely—"_

"And I've got, what, just over thirteen years to steal you away from Clooney?"

The tiniest, most insignificant remnant of her good sense almost wished that he'd be a little less forward, because she found herself emboldened by his interest. Already, they were sitting far too close together. Already, she had rubbed her foot against his leg far too many times. Already, she was wondering if she could lay claim to the flat by leaving early, giving Mary no hope but to follow Sirius to the maisonette he shared with Remus.

Already, James had stolen her away, from George Clooney or anyone else, and that was dangerous.

"You," she said, and poked his chest. "Are a flirt, James Potter."

"And you're not?"

"I'm completely innocent in all of this," she lied, to which he laughed again. "Anyway, what's your life plan?"

"Aside from this plan I've just hatched to marry you and one-up George?" He shrugged. "Don't have one, honestly."

"Most people our age don't."

"You do," he reminded her. "Do you know how brilliant that is? To know exactly what you want? I haven't got a clue what I want, or what I'm doing, that's why I never went to uni. I keep hoping I'll figure it out, and nothing ever happens."

"That's probably better than going to uni _without_ knowing what you want, then halfway through you're like, I hate this, so you crash out and try to make it as a YouTuber but you're ten years too late."

"See, if uni here was more like in America, where you can try a bunch of different subjects instead of doing one course—"

"—and wind up in crippling debt for the rest of your life?"

"Doesn't that happen here, too?"

"Yeah," Lily agreed. Her hands were starting to feel funny, almost numb, which was one of her 'better stop now' tells whenever she had one too many. She was charging full-steam ahead on the drunkard express. "It's less debt, though. A lot less."

"See, the whole student life thing sounds brilliant, but I didn't think it was enough of a reason to go."

"So what do you do? For a living, I mean."

"Oh." James waved his hand as flippantly as if no subject could be less important. "I work for Sleekeazy's, in London."

"The cosmetics company?"

"Well, mostly hair stuff, but yeah. Office work. It's dead boring."

"But you're not using their products, are you? This looks all natural," she said, and lifted her hand to comb her fingers through his hair. It was as soft and as silky as she had imagined, a luxuriant bed of chaos that just begged to be ruffled, played with, pulled hard in the heat of passion while she writhed beneath his sweating, naked body, an idea that set off sparklers in the crevices of her mind. "Can I touch it?"

Her nails raked gently against his scalp, and his voice dropped to a more intimate tone. "You _are_ touching it."

"I know."

"Feels nice."

"Yeah?"

"Mmm." His eyelids dropped, lips curving upwards. He had beautiful lips. Full. Lips that could have kissed her properly, the way lips were supposed to. "You're really good at that."

"I'm good at lots of things," she sighed.

"I'd bet you are."

"You should."

She gave his hair a gentle tug, and the arm he'd thrown across the back of the seat fell to settle around her shoulders, and she decided that she really liked this game.

* * *

After five drinks apiece, Lily was tracing circular patterns on the palm of his hand that he seemed to like, her legs curled beneath her to give her some height, chest thrust right beneath his nose, and she started getting honest.

"I don't normally dress like this, you know. With the boobs, and all."

James's gaze dropped to settle unsteadily on the clearly visible hollow between her breasts. "No?"

She shook her head. "Earlier, I had on a cardigan—"

"I noticed."

"And a Ninja Turtles t-shirt."

His eyes trailed back up to her face, slowly, taking time to linger on the base of her throat, and found hers, and held them. They were hazel, she had noticed earlier, and he had the darkest, longest eyelashes. "Seriously?"

"Yeah."

"That's fucking brilliant."

"See, Mary is supposed to pull Sirius tonight," she told him. "I was her backup - _am_ her backup, I guess - but then I saw this guy—"

"What guy?"

"Just a guy," she said, with a nonchalant shrug, and ran her fingernail along his heart line. "Just a really - fucking - painfully gorgeous guy, you know? And I'm standing there in a cartoon t-shirt like a twelve-year-old, so Mary gave me this. Actually, it was her sister, but whatever, they look alike, and do you have any idea how much _tape_ it takes to get boobs look like this?"

"I don't have any, so no," said James. "But yours are pretty phenomenal."

"Thank you very much."

"And, I mean, I don't know about this guy you were trying to impress—"

"As if you don't."

"—but I fancied the pants off you in a cardigan."

The electricity between them was obvious, perhaps to the entire room, and James hadn't been shy in exploring it, but Lily blushed as if this was brand new information.

"Did you really?" she asked coyly. "Even before I came over?"

"The minute I laid eyes on you," he confessed. "You were standing at the bar and turned around, and I thought, there's a woman I'll never get to sleep with."

"You did not!"

"I did!"

"But you're so handsome!" she protested. "You could have any woman you wanted."

"Nope. Definitely can't. I'm hopeless. Ask Sirius. Ask anyone."

"You haven't been hopeless with me—"

"That was, I dunno, different," he said. "It feels right with you, but, I mean, I had a panic attack in the loo earlier—"

"Is that why you took off those antlers?"

"Obviously!"

"But I thought they were cute!"

"Well, that's great in hindsight, but how would you have felt if you were me and a good-looking woman caught you wearing something stupid—"

"Didn't I just tell you how I taped my boobs into this thing to get your attention?"

"Think so," James agreed, staring at her breasts once again. "They really are phenomenal."

"You already said that."

"Difficult for me to be coherent right now, if I'm honest," he said, and tugged once, very gently, on a strand of her hair. "I'm drunk and you're gorgeous."

That, she thought, might have done her in.

An alcoholic fog had crept inside her brain at some point, and she was groping in darkness now. The better part of herself had stumbled into a boozy slumber, replaced by another kind of girl, one Lily didn't know very well, but she wouldn't have minded learning more about her.

She _really_ wouldn't have minded.

There had been reservations. She remembered that, but in a detached sort of way that made her feel as if she'd dreamed them. Something about time - no time, not enough time - and he didn't live here and there was other stuff, perhaps, but she didn't care.

She wanted sex, _good_ sex, for once in her life. She was a good girl, sure, but it wasn't as if she was a prude. She'd done the deed before, though it had been a while, but she knew what she was doing, more or less. Her ex had considered his own needs more pressing, and often it was a case of lying there, waiting for it to be over, faking orgasms to stave off a sulk, and _time_ , all the time it would take her to get her anywhere close to ready, because he'd never quite comprehended that she wasn't an appliance, that she couldn't be switched on and off at will. She'd always preferred to sort herself out, because at least _she_ knew what she liked.

"Hey," he said, and nudged her arm. "You still with me?"

She looked up at him, so close and yet so devastatingly far from where she needed him to be, wondering how it would feel if he unzipped her jeans and slid his hand beneath her knickers, and realised, to her surprise, that she was already wet.

 _It feels right with you,_ he'd said, and it did.

"Can I tell you a secret?" she murmured, and didn't wait for a response before she seized a fistful of his shirt and pulled, bringing him as close as he could get. "And if I do, will you promise not to tell anyone, 'specially not Mary but even more especially not anyone?"

His forehead bumped gently against hers. "Sure."

"I think you might be the fittest guy I've ever met," she confessed, and relished the appearance of that perfect fucking dimple when a perfect fucking smile spread slowly across his perfect fucking face. "And I mean, like, you know? Ever? Like, who _are_ you, and how did this happen, and will you come home with me right now?"

"Come home?" he repeated, but slowly, as if he was making sure he'd heard her fully, eyebrows rising just a fraction. "You mean—"

"To fuck me?"

"Right," he said, and swallowed once, his Adam's apple bobbing, and she dropped her hand to rest on his thigh, and a soft noise of longing escaped him, and Lily felt herself grow slick with arousal. Already. Already. _"Fuck."_

"That's what I said."

"But you're sure?"

"Dead sure."

"Only, you've had a lot to drink—"

"And I wanted you when I was sober."

"I want you, too," he echoed. "I mean - _fuck_ \- the minute I saw you - I got hard just _looking_ at you."

"Come home with me, and I'll do something about that, if you want," she offered, her eyes locked on his, not letting him escape. "Do you want?"

An expulsion of breath, and a quick, sharp nod, and she had him.

He was hers.

* * *

"Don't let David startle you when you get in."

"David?" said James, with a slight frown, leaning back against the wall while Lily examined her keys in a ponderous, booze-soaked manner, her mind skirting around the recollection that unlocking her door was normally easier than this. "Who's David?"

"Tennant."

"What, like, he pays you rent?"

"No, like David Tennant, the tenth Doctor."

He turned around and let his shoulder fall against the door frame, hands shoved neatly in his pockets. "David Tennant _lives_ in your flat?"

"I mean - no - well, yes, but not the real one," she said, shaking the key that she thought was right, as if for good luck, and lowered it unsteadily to the lock. "But it's a version - I mean we bought - _oh!"_

With a satisfying click and a turn of the handle, the door to her flat swung inwards and she slipped inside, leaving it open for James to follow.

"'Lo, David," she said to the cutout, with a genial slap to its chest. "This is my new friend, James."

Her new friend - or lover? Lily didn't know how far they'd need to go for him to bear that particular title - shut the door behind him and regarded the cutout warily. "That explains a lot."

"I think Mary practices snogging on him, really, but mostly he's our coat stand," she explained. "Which reminds me..."

A speedy escape had been of the essence at the pub, because Mary had been promised the flat, but Lily had succumbed too much to the power of lust to care. She'd feigned a need to use the bathroom - a trip that turned out to be useful, when she had presence of mind enough to remember to peel the tape from her propped-up tits - while James strolled as if to the bar, then both made their break for it, convening outside on a rained-on pavement that sparkled in the light of the street lamps overhead.

They'd probably been really obvious. She'd probably be teased tomorrow.

A text, rushed and likely misspelled, had been sent to Mary to profess the truth. Lily had received a bunch of swear words back, followed shortly by a slew of thumbs-up emojis. Evidently, Mary had found another location in which she could conduct her seduction.

The downside to running boldly from the pub was that she couldn't run upstairs to find her cardigan without giving the game away, so James had insisted that she wear his coat, which he'd managed to sneak from the booth. This, she appreciated, though her flat was a five-minute walk away and the rain had stopped. Tottering home in heels - and far drunker than she'd realised while inside, once the fresh air hit her face and she felt herself smacked by a wave of dizzying inertia - was bad enough already. Making the same trip cold would have been infinitely worse.

She shrugged his coat off and hung it neatly on one of David's shoulders. "Thank you for letting me wear this."

"It's alright," he said, one hand lifting to push his hair from his face. "I didn't want you to get cold."

"Could've warmed me up yourself."

"Still can, if you want."

She felt her heart flutter, and something else, something different to the suggestive, charged-up intricacies of the dance they'd done all night, and _that_ made her feel shy, and that wasn't what she wanted.

There was a distance of a few feet between them, and on one hand, Lily was all fired up, and most certainly willing, but something about the stilled, unlit silence of her flat, and the walk it had taken to get here, made her feel as if she was missing out on another step in the process, something vital and inherently polite. Were they supposed to get right to it? Tear each other's clothes off? There should have been more ceremony to all this, she thought, or not - she wasn't sure. She'd never done this before. The idea of simply kissing him now felt almost mercenary, as if he were a piece of meat she'd purchased, not a thinking, feeling person who had a life to get back to one she was done devouring him.

Her head was swimming.

They were drunk and this wasn't romance, and she needed to move away from the feeling he'd prodded, warm and confusing, into her chest, so she took a couple of unbalanced, backwards steps.

"Need to take these shoes off," she said, more to herself than to him, and twirled around. "Sofa."

"You're alright getting there?"

"Mmhmm. Solid as a rock, me."

"They don't look very comfortable."

"They're not," she said, sitting down. He'd followed her but kept a respectable distance, one resting hand on the back of the armchair. Eliza's stupid, sexy shoes had far too many straps, and tiny, fiddly buckles, as intricate and perplexing as a Chinese puzzle box, so Lily bent forward to undo them, keeping her eyes fixed on her feet. "Trainers are better."

"I wear a lot of trainers and not a lot of heels—"

"Not a lot?"

"Not since my beauty pageant days," he said, and she looked up, catching his eye, and he laughed in a self-deprecating kind of way. "You okay?"

"Yeah," she said, with an equally self-conscious smile, then returned her gaze to her feet. "Shoes are being bratty."

"Terrible behaviour."

"D'you want a drink, or something?"

"Nah, it's fine," he said, somewhat absently, and then, "Is that Sirius?"

Thinking that Sirius was about to burst into the flat with Mary clinging to his back, Lily looked up in alarm, but James was moving towards the window, beneath which sat her desk, upon which was a small collection of her drawings.

"Oh," she said. "Yeah."

"Do you mind me looking at these?"

"Go ahead."

He went quiet, shuffling through the stack of papers while she struggled in taking off the heels. When she had finally managed to wrestle them off, she got up and padded over to where he stood, not quite able to make it in a straight line but otherwise pretty lucid, the soles of her feet cold against the floor. The only light in the room came from the street lamp outside, which didn't quite reach their faces, but cast an achromatic glow upon the desk that threw her drawings into sharp relief. Sirius would have loved his own personal spotlight.

"They're not great," she said, when she drew level with him. "It's just something I do for fun—"

"I like them," said James simply. "I mean, I prefer the ones that _don't_ involve my best mate's arse—"

"S'pose I understand that."

"Did he get his tattoo removed?"

"His what?"

"His tattoo," he repeated, and pointed to one of her drawings, his finger resting on Sirius's bum. "Looks like a big black dot on his arse? He got drunk once and tried to do it himself, mate's tattoo gun, but it hurt too much and he chickened out."

Lily's jaw dropped open. "Oh my _God—"_

"I know, he thought he'd be able to write 'fuck the Man,' on his arse, but—"

"No!" she interrupted, her hand jumping to grasp James's upper arm and turn him more towards her. "I mean, _that's_ what that is? A bleeding _tattoo?"_

"Yeah?"

"I thought it was like, a blackhead or something!" she said, and shook her head in slow disbelief, which expelled itself in a laugh. "I can't fucking believe that, I couldn't figure it out for _ages_ and it was driving me nuts, so I've refused to draw it out of, like—"

"Anger?"

"No, principle," she corrected, smiling up at him. "Your mate's a fucking idiot, you know that?"

"Can't disagree," he replied. "Though, you seem have a thing for his arse—"

"God, no!" she squeaked. "I just don't want to sit in front of him, and he's like, all Trelawney lets us draw now."

"What a relief," he quipped, and mimed wiping sweat from his brow.

 _Adorable._

She was staring at him, she realised, with slightly parted lips. He kept surprising her, every time she looked at him and found herself reminded that he _really_ was that gorgeous, and watching him stand there in her flat - this very tall, scruffy-haired, intensely handsome man whom she hadn't known existed when she'd last walked out her door - was weirdly surreal.

"Sorry," she said, after a moment of silence, and took a step back, her hand falling from his arm, and found herself blushing.

"For what?"

"For staring."

That warm, dimpled smile crept onto his face again. "I like you staring."

"S'difficult not to."

"Same," he agreed, and moved his hands to hers, entwining their fingers, pulling her towards him. "Lily—"

"Yeah?"

"—you're beautiful."

"Oh."

"And I think I have to kiss you now."

"Have to?"

"Need to," he said, and cupped her face between his hands. "If - only if you're sure you want to."

She'd been so brazen earlier, but now there was only them and silence, and all she had was her own, unguarded, fiercely pounding heart. "Please."

So he tilted her chin and brought his lips down upon hers, softer than silk, not a crashing wave or a heady cascade, but slow, deliberate, a kiss that had all the time in the world, and it was sweet. _So_ sweet. Not at all what she'd expected - not a drunken, sloppy fumble - but fireflies cutting paths behind her eyelids, rising on her tiptoes, up, up, up, like a fairy taking flight, the sweetest thing she'd ever done, a kiss she hadn't known him long enough to share.

She'd never done this before, but she knew it wasn't supposed to happen like this. It was _supposed_ to be the sloppy fumble. She'd seen all the films. They should have been snogging before they got to the flat. They should have crashed against the door, bodies fused together in the heat of passion. She'd started off all wrong.

Sex. She wanted him for sex. Not for a kiss from a storybook.

But his hands were warm on her back and his lips were magic and Lily was drunk, tripping through a meadow of starry-eyed enchantment that she liked too much, and she needed to stop, lest she fall for him, or something stupid. He was being gentle, _too_ gentle, and that wasn't what she wanted, beautiful as it was. She wasn't made of china. She wasn't going to break.

With great, great difficulty, she broke away from his lips.

"What?" said James, his eyes still half-closed, ducking in for another kiss, but she jerked her head back. "What?"

"What're you doing?"

"Er?" He blinked, and frowned down at her. "Kissing you?"

"You're - _why_ are you kissing me like that?"

"Like what?"

"Like, aren't you supposed to - I don't know - bend me over or—"

 _"Bend you over?!"_

"That's just one—"

 _"Why_ would I want to bend—"

"In and out, right? I've never had a one-night stand but that's what Mary says."

James looked as if he might start laughing, with the way that fucking lovely dimple of his deepened in his cheek, but instead he threaded his fingers through her hair, pushing it behind her ears.

"Lily," he said, a little sternly. "Can't I just kiss you for five minutes first?"

"But I just—"

"Did you not like it?"

"No, I _loved_ it!" she cried. "But I wanted—"

"What?" His eyebrows moved up his forehead. "You just want to fuck, then?"

It sounded so licentious when he put it like that, but it wasn't as if he was wrong. "Well, yes, I suppose?"

James took a step backwards, head cocked to one side, and studied her for a few silent seconds, his eyes unreadable behind his glasses.

"Alright," he agreed, finally, and in the next moment he had pulled his shirt over his head, tossed it, and tugged once at the delicate fabric of her barely-there camisole. "Off."

He was so _lush -_ nothing at all like his mate's pale, scrawny body - and Lily's eyes travelled down past his broad shoulders, his chest, following the concave line of his stomach, and heat crept into her cheeks. "What?"

"You heard me."

"Like, right now?"

"I can count you in, if you want."

She could tell he was enjoying this, enjoying the way she was watching him, and she shouldn't have felt so shy. This was ridiculous. She was a grown woman. A sexually confident grown woman. A drunk, sexually confident grown woman.

She pulled her top over her head and let it slip from her fingers, resisting every powerful urge to cover her now exposed chest - his gaze had dropped immediately - with her arms.

"Now what?" she said.

"This," he replied.

He collided with her.

She hit the desk with the back of her thighs and heard something fall, but Lily didn't care, she didn't _care_ because there was no softness in the way his lips met hers this time; he was ravenous, drinking her like wine, moaning into her mouth when she writhed against him in eager response, taking her as if he wanted her, clasping the back of her head as if he'd never let her go.

Her arms flew to wrap around his shoulders, one hand finding itself a home in his messy hair, and he was pressing hard, wet, open-mouthed kisses to her neck, pushing his hips into hers, desk rattling, and she didn't care. His hands slid along her back, gripped her waist, cupped her breasts, pinched them, played with them, and when he bent to finish what he'd started with his lips and his tongue, she moaned, arching towards him with her head tipped back, and papers fluttered to the floor, and Lily didn't care.

She'd never wanted anyone so badly, or wanted more of them when she finally got a taste.

When she tugged on his hair, a wordless request, because she needed him to kiss her another thousand times, he moved back up to catch her mouth again, a hard, hungry pressure that shot sparks through her veins, and she sighed gratefully into his lips.

"You're gorgeous," he murmured, pulling back for air. "Let me get you off."

She nodded eagerly, desire aching everywhere, and he undid the top button of her jeans with a casual flick that made her shiver in anticipation, made light work of the zipper. He slid his hand inside her knickers without a moment's hesitation - the way she'd wanted him to earlier - and grinned smugly when he found her wet.

"Eager, aren't you?"

 _"Shut up,"_ she whispered, urging his mouth back towards hers. _"Shut up, shut up."_

He removed his hand to yank her jeans down to her knees, grabbed her hips to guide her onto the desk, then brought it back, his lips finding hers again. Nothing he did was slow, now, he was determined to bring her to the edge and do it fast, one finger moving steadily against her clit, coated in her wetness, one minute there and then inside her, pumping hard while he sucked at her neck, sure to leave a mark, and everyone would know he'd had her, and the thought of it only served to make her body sing for him. She clung to his shoulders, helpless, whimpering when he found a spot that made her body jolt of its own accord, gasping when he added another finger to the mix.

It was beautiful, and terrible, the way he made her feel, so exposed and yet so _good_ all at once.

She was very nearly there, rocking her hips towards him with every stroke, and she was going to come _so_ fast and so soon, her ardent whimpers building to a crescendo, but then his lips and his body and his hands were gone, and she was bereft of him.

And angry.

"What?!" she gasped, and reached out for him, but he grabbed hold of her wrist and stayed it. _"Why?"_

"You rushed me earlier."

"So you're _punishing_ me?"

"Where would you get an idea like that?" he said, but he was smirking, infuriatingly cocky, a whole new side of him for her to learn. So much in a short space of hours. "You want it now, you'll get it now. Where's your bedroom?"

"What?"

"Your bedroom," he repeated. "Need you on your back."

She should have been enraged at him for denying her release - she tried to be - but she couldn't hide the heat that crackled beneath her skin, nor the excitement in her eyes, nor the slow upturn of her well-kissed lips. She had never liked being ordered around, but apparently, James was the exception.

She pulled up her jeans, then pointed, with her free hand, to the door that stood several feet to her right. "There."

"Good girl," he told her. "Go."

The temptation to defy him ebbed away as soon as it arrived, and it felt so much sweeter to be obedient, to turn and walk away and have him follow. He'd lifted self-consciousness from the surface of her skin; she felt lush and wanted.

Her room was shrouded in the same darkness as the rest of the flat, nothing but moonlight streaming through a gap between the curtains, so she flicked on the lamp that stood in the corner when James came in behind her, casting them both in a honey-toned light.

"Take off your jeans, then sit," he instructed, and pointed to her bed.

"Just my jeans?"

"Just your jeans."

She did, while he stood and watched her, seemingly in no hurry to do much else, his eyes dark, and curious, and carefully drinking her in. It was only when she'd done what he asked that he removed the rest of his own clothes, making short work of it all, leaving her free to watch him greedily, perched on the edge of her neatly made bed.

He was hard, though she hadn't even touched it.

Look what _she_ had done.

She had gone for too long without feeling his skin, so she reached for him, again, but he caught hold of her wrist and held it fast. Again.

"No."

"But—"

"You first," he told her, in a voice - _do as I fucking say_ \- she didn't know, but liked, loved, wanted too much to have any wits about her. "Lie down."

She had thought, in the pub, that she was the one with all the control, but James had fucked her into submission with just two fingers, and she was his now. Wanting. Needy. Possessed by an avaricious hunger for the rest of him, a hunger that left her open and compliant. Pushing herself further up her bed, the crisp embroidered covers twisting beneath her palms. Falling back among her pillows.

His, now. All his, if only for a night.

He moved above her in an instant, a weighty presence between her open legs, sinewy arms stretched taut as he loomed, his hands finding her splayed palms, his fingers threading through hers. Pressing her down. Watching her - silent seconds ticking by - pinned beneath him, his eyes moving from hers to rake over her parted lips, the base of her throat, pausing to linger on her breasts, and her nipples - pink and hardened - and back until he found her gaze again.

He'd taken his glasses off, at some point. She couldn't remember when.

"You're _gorgeous,"_ he said, wrenched words torn from his throat, as if it _hurt_ , as if she was killing him. "You're _fucking_ gorgeous."

Then he dipped his head and kissed her, only once, but thorough, a hot, demanding pressure on her willing lips, swallowing her sighs of pleasure, and broke away, this time to kiss and nip at her ear, her throat, the pulse point in her neck. He let go of her hands and moved down her body, and she wanted to touch him everywhere at once, feel his cock twitch beneath her groping fingers, but she knew he wouldn't let her yet. _You first. You first._ It played through her head like a prayer, as he teased her breast with one hand, took the other in his mouth, caressed her with an eager tongue, as she let out a starved, salacious whimper and her hands jumped to grasp his perfect fucking hair. _You first._

 _"James,"_ she pleaded, and heard a muffled moan against her skin, something he liked, finally, something she could use. She arched her hips up, ground herself against him, but he moved a hand and pushed her pelvis back against the bed.

 _You first._ He seemed intent on making her wait. Needless. She was dripping already, longing for his touch between her thighs. _You first._ He wasn't in a hurry, switching hand and mouth, nipping and sucking at her nipple, soft at first, harder when a sudden gasp told him that she liked it. Torturous. _You first._ Open-mouthed kisses on her stomach. Another guttural moan when she tugged impatiently at his hair. Divine. _You first. You first. You first._

Further down he moved, until his weight was gone completely, that gorgeous pressure lifted from her hips, leaving her cold, and Lily could have screamed.

"Now?" She sounded so fucking desperate, but she needed it - needed _him_ \- her heart pounding hard against her ribs, unfocused eyes gazing at the ceiling. "Please?"

"Not yet," he murmured, and pressed the softest kisses to inside of her thigh, tremors rippling through her, every inch. "Want you like this."

He touched her then, the lightest graze, once up and once down, barely perceptible through the thin, tellingly damp fabric of her knickers, but enough to make her tremble, then again, and again, and again until she writhed, lips clamped shut to keep herself from begging, from screaming at him to _just fucking do it._ Nudging the fabric aside so he could see her, only to let it go and resume his careless touches, a merely contemplative thing, _not yet, not yet_ , and she was going to burst from the pain of it all, sheets clenched between her grasping fingers.

 _"James,"_ she groaned again, a low, impatient plea that came against her will, and slid her hand down her stomach. "I'll do it if you won't."

He pushed her hand away, no control for her. "Up," he ordered, and slid his hands beneath the curve of her bum; she arched her hips, needy, compliant, and he yanked her knickers down her thighs, removed them completely, tossed them somewhere - she didn't care - grasped her legs and pulled her down toward him.

"You're so wet," he said, his voice low, reverential, as if it were a surprise, and she were to be worshipped.

Then he lowered his head, fingers digging hard into her thighs, and pushed his tongue against her clit - she jerked helplessly beneath his mouth, biting back a hungry cry - once, twice, three times, again and again, hard and fast and urgent, probing and sucking, moaning in a way that sent vibrations shuddering through her when she gasped and called his name, tasting her, _devouring_ her, spurred on by her ever canting hips. It was all so quick now. No more torture. He could wait no longer, perhaps, needed her like she had needed him - _still_ needed him, all of him - Lily couldn't think; a thunderous pressure was building deep inside her, pushing her to a delirious edge.

"You taste _so_ good," he muttered, his breath hot on her drenched, pulsing centre, and that alone was close enough to finishing her.

When he slipped a finger inside her, then a second, crooked and plunging, swirling in her depths while his tongue lapped hungrily at her clit, she knew she was done for, that he'd bring her to the edge and let her go, this time. _You first._ A sound she didn't know escaped her. _You first._ Her whole body shook, thighs clamping inwards, waves of pleasure sweeping, sweeping, for far longer than she was used to, her breath coming in pants. _You first_ , and he'd made her come so hard.

She felt it as her body went into spasm. She felt it _everywhere._ She felt like she'd been branded. His now.

 _I like you,_ she thought. _I like you. I like you. I really fucking like you._

He moved back up her body, planting disconnected kisses on her thigh, her breast, the delicate spot on her neck, and one, soft and surprisingly sweet, to her damp forehead.

"You okay?" he heard him ask her, a voice that hovered outside the haze she'd found herself immersed in.

She nodded, quickly, a low rumble in the back of her throat. Her heart was beating so fast, as though it strained to be closer to the pounding in his chest.

"You're sure? That wasn't—"

"Was perfect. You killed me," she said, and his face split into the most beautiful smile. "You now."

"You don't need a minute?"

"No, please." Her hand found her way to his cock, hard and tense, and slid along the shaft, gripping hard, and James bit his lip to suppress a groan. "Want you inside me."

"Y'sure?"

Her free hand reached, cupped his cheek, ran her thumb across the line of his jaw. "You had me, now you're mine."

There was a silence. His eyes bored into hers, searching, something unreadable reflected back at her, and Lily wondered for a moment if she'd said the wrong thing, but then...

"Yeah," he agreed, so quietly, and buried his lips in her neck, and his hand in her hair, and himself in her, over and over again. "Now I'm yours."


	5. Damn, Girl

**Author's Note:** I like this new habit of mine of assigning one particular song to a chapter. This time around, it's "Where Is My Mind," by Telepathic Teddy Bear.

 **Chapter 4**

 **Damn, Girl**

Lily woke up late, and groggy, besieged by a hangover, and wrapped up in a man she hardly knew.

A man she'd shagged. Twice.

The second time had surprised them both - he'd spent himself inside her, and they'd both been pretty tired - but as they lay there in the dark, facing one another, laughing at Lily's assertion that Sirius was secretly paying Trelawney to let him pose nude week after week, James had kissed her, and she'd wanted him too much to stop what happened next. Somehow, she'd wound up on top of him, and that was it for another half hour.

That, though, had happened in the dead of night, before whatever she'd consumed at the pub set to work ravaging her insides, turning her guts to bubbling lava and the inside of her mouth to the Sahara desert. It had happened when she was lit by stars, in the presence of a gorgeous man who couldn't hide how much he wanted her, when she was decidedly unlike her day-to-day self.

Her mother would be so disappointed, she realised, and her stomach lurched with shame. Or the hangover. It might have been that.

She'd brought a guy home and fucked him like she'd always sworn she wouldn't.

She'd demanded it, in fact, when he'd tried to kiss her nicely and be decent about it, which must have made her feelings on the matter quite clear to him, and she really shouldn't have been so hasty because she wasn't sure if they _were_ her feelings. James had probably done this with lots of girls. Of _course_ he had, he'd been so self-assured once they were alone, and knew exactly how to make her toes curl, and he was _so_ fit, it wasn't possible that scores of other women hadn't snatched him up when they had the chance. Now, she'd made it known that she was happy to be one in that number. A notch on his bedpost. He'd forget that she existed, perhaps, the moment he stepped out of her flat.

Unless he didn't. Unless he liked her as much as he'd let on. If the way he'd looked at her, or kissed her, or held her - tucked so snugly in his arms as they slipped, finally, into sleep - had been part of some sort of act to keep her sweet for the night, the bloke deserved an Oscar for his efforts, because he'd made her feel special. More special, she imagined, than a person had any right to feel with a one-night stand.

She didn't know what time it was, and it would have been nice to sink into a coma right then and there, with James's arm curled around her waist, his heartbeat slow against her back, chest rising and falling in a steady rhythm, more familiar and more comforting than he should have been, as if he'd always belonged in her bed but had only just managed to wind up there. She _wanted_ to stay there in his arms for endless, rose-tinted hours, but she had to get ready for work, and she was pretty sure she'd throw up if she didn't brush the taste of death from inside her mouth, and that fear won out over fantasy, in the end.

She slid out from beneath his arm, careful, so as not to disturb him, and winced when her feet touched the floor. The laminate surface felt like ice beneath her toes, and the thought occurred to her that all bedrooms should have had carpets without exception because this was too much for her to suffer. Life was unfair, and she was feeling too fragile to face it with her usual confidence.

Her bathrobe was draped across her reading chair, innocent, fluffy and duck-egg blue, unaware that it was to be used to cover a body that had been thoroughly ravished by a stranger not hours before. She pulled it on, watching James, who was still very much asleep, one leg thrown over the covers - he had muscles in his outer thigh that sent a funny feeling jolting through her lower abdomen - his arm splayed across the empty space where her body had been.

He was so beautiful, even asleep, even with his mouth a little open and his body sprawling awkwardly on her mattress, it almost pained her.

She shouldn't have brought him home. She should have talked to him all night, gotten his number, become something, _made_ something of them both, instead of shame-spiralling in the cold light of morning, instead of letting him think that she was good for a night of sex and not much else.

He might not have thought that, she knew, but hangovers weren't known for casting unfamiliar situations in a positive light.

Her phone - which she found in the handbag she'd left at David Tennant's feet - told her that it was 8:57, and she was due at the museum at 9:30, so any hope she had of staving off a day of nauseated regret with a long, relaxing bath, a greasy fry-up and a hot mug of tea was promptly killed. She opted for a lightning-quick shower and half a granola bar, then returned to her room with wet hair to find clothes, make herself look less like a zombie and somehow deal with the problem of the fully naked man in her bed.

James was still asleep when she came back, so she was able to throw on her work-standard black trousers and the first plain t-shirt she could find in her wardrobe without his eyes on her, but when she was clothed, and had lashed on some foundation and mascara - she didn't want him seeing her in all her ghastly, hungover glory - she had no choice but to wake him up. This was her flat, so walking out and leaving without a word wasn't an option, and she'd considered writing him a note, but that seemed inexcusably rude considering the wondrous, core-shattering orgasms he'd given her last night, even if she was ashamed of them now.

So she perched delicately on the edge of the bed, shook his shoulder and tried not to think of how intimately acquainted she had become with so much of his body.

"Hey," she said softly, when he finally stirred, and turned toward her. "Good morning."

"Morning," he replied, with a soft, drowsy, aren't-you-a-sight-for-sore-eyes kind of smile that made her heart flutter, which wasn't how she had hoped to begin this conversation. He was half-asleep and probably hungover himself, obviously not operating at full strength, yet the way he affected her felt like a sucker-punch to the stomach, keen and painful all at once.

"I, er," she began. "I found your glasses on my desk."

"Oh?"

"Yeah," she said. She set the glasses on the duvet, careful not to touch his bare chest, a process that felt oddly clinical considering how familiar they had been with one another only hours earlier. She had licked parts of him that weren't even on display. "Listen, I've got to go to work—"

"What?"

"I have to go to work, and—"

"They let you work?" said James, and pushed himself up with his elbows, blinking sleepily. His black hair was especially tousled, in part, Lily suspected, because of their wild night, and the overall picture he presented - messy, naked, and lying in her bed - was fairly damaging to her sanity. "The uni, I mean, because Remus can't—"

"I'm not studying at Cambridge Uni," she interrupted. "I'm at Anglia Ruskin, and they're a lot better about letting students work part-time, which I kind of have to do because I need the money, and I don't have a Bank of Mum and Dad to dip into, so..."

"Your parents can't—"

"They're dead," she said, and his eyes widened in surprise, and Lily could have kicked herself. "Sorry."

"No, you shouldn't—"

"I shouldn't have sprung that on you—"

"It's fine, I just wasn't expecting—"

"People usually aren't," she agreed. "Anyway."

"Yeah," said James, and his shoulders sagged a little. "Anyway."

If last night - every facet of it - had seemed unusually easy, this choppy, stilted conversation was anything but. She knew that she had to leave ten minutes ago to even make it to the museum on time, and that Anna would be stuck prepping the café alone, but she also knew that she didn't _want_ to leave because throwing herself at his mercy - though she'd only known him for fourteen hours - seemed so much more appealing than serving coffee and cold croissants to day-trippers and people who had wandered in to keep out of the rain because the Fitzwilliam had free admission. She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted to feel the weight of him on top of her again. She wanted to tell him he could do whatever he wanted to her as long as he did it often - every day, if he could find the time - and with one or two romantic dinners thrown in, perhaps, because she liked him more than was good for her.

Except Anna was so familiar with Lily's fastidious habit of arriving early for everything that she'd probably called the police already, and she couldn't just ask James for a relationship, as if he somehow owed her one for sleeping with her, when that was a gross breach of one-night stand protocol, according to Mary, and when she couldn't even _have_ a relationship in the first place. She had such little free time that one weekly art class outside of uni felt like a luxury, and she'd inevitably spend the rest of her weekend finishing the equity paper she'd neglected last night.

He didn't fit. She had a plan. He wouldn't fit.

But he was so _lovely._

So lovely, in fact, that he undoubtedly deserved the kind of time and energy that Lily simply couldn't spare right now. He deserved a girlfriend who would make him a priority.

And who even said he'd be willing to date her? Lily couldn't offer him anything he couldn't get from a thousand other, less busy, much prettier girls in London.

Her head began to throb. Perhaps she was coming down with something.

They stared at each other for a minute, then Lily came to, clearing her throat without much need for it. "So, work."

"Work," James repeated.

"I'm actually supposed to be there by now," she explained. "I've texted to say I'll be late, but they'll still expect me in so I need to run but, um, d'you know how to get to Remus's from here?"

"I can manage."

"You're sure?"

"I visit Remus a lot," he said, and picked up his glasses. He smiled at her, pleasant but impersonal, once he'd pushed them up his nose. "I know my way about."

She wanted to ask him why Remus had never bothered to introduce them when they were so clearly supposed to be together, but that was last night's Lily sending messages to her conscious mind, and everyday Lily knew to ignore them. "Are you staying until Sunday?"

"We're leaving this afternoon, actually. Peter's got a family thing on, and I drove us, so..."

"Ah, I see."

She hated herself for the cold, unpleasant sensation of sheer disappointment that lurched downwards unto her stomach, and she knew it must have reflected itself in her face.

James sat up a little straighter. "But I can always—"

"Have a safe trip back, yeah?" she hurriedly interjected. "Mary's not in her room and probably won't reappear until midday so, y'know, feel free to use the shower and help yourself to whatever's in the fridge, and the front door locks itself when you leave, and drive safe, which I already said, sort of, but it bears repeating—"

"Lily?"

"Yeah?"

"Have I—" He moved his hand as if to touch hers, hesitantly, as if he were groping in the dark towards something dangerous, drawing back at the last second. "Have I upset you or something?"

He was looking at her with such sincerity, such ardent, honest concern - either he meant it or he _really_ deserved that Oscar, and she didn't know which would be worse. She imagined leaning forward to kiss him, climbing atop the bed to plant her knees on either side of his body, his hand winding around the back of her neck, pulling her closer, deeper, and Anna could manage the place for herself if Lily pulled a sickie and missed one day...

"Of course not," she said, with a feeble attempt at a comical eye-roll. "I just really need to get to work, you know?"

He sighed. "Right."

"Right," she repeated, and stood up. "So, you know what you're at and I - right. I guess - thanks for last night, by the way. Really fun."

"Yeah," he said, though he looked as if he didn't believe her. "No problem."

"Tell Remus I said hi."

"Will do."

"And, er, bye then."

He gave an unenthusiastic wave, a remote smile stretched across his face, her duvet bunched up around his waist. "Bye."

And though she probably should have thrown herself at him, or demanded he make Peter take the train, or just been honest with them both and asked if he could return to Cambridge and see her next weekend, she backed out of her room and promptly fled the scene. Ashamed. Confused. Instantly regretful.

What a disaster.

* * *

"You just missed Arlène," said Anna when Lily got in, a full twenty minutes late, her fingernails drumming idly on the polished counter-top.

"Shit, did I?"

"I ran into her while I was letting myself in. She was surprised to find that you weren't with me, as was I, and we considered calling Amnesty International, but I decided to give you another few minutes."

"I'm so sorry," said Lily, dashing behind the counter. She threw her bag on the ground, kicked it out of the way to avoid creating a trip hazard, wrestled her coat off and snatched up the apron that Anna had so kindly brought out from the staff room. "I'm so, so, _so_ sorry, I've had such a weird morning."

Luckily for them both, the café wasn't opening for another ten minutes, and the only other person present was Jess in the gift shop, who was eyeing Lily with great interest from behind a tower of postcards. Anna wasn't the only one well-acquainted with Lily's passion for punctuality.

"Relax, you and Arlène missing each other is tradition at this stage," said Anna dryly. "You look like shit."

"Thanks a bunch."

"Are you hungover?"

"No."

"Is that a lie?"

"Yes."

"That's not like you," said Anna curiously, her lips curling into a smile that said, "Gossip imminent!" though her prone position and the way she was slumped over the counter, her chin balanced unsteadily in her hand, told Lily that she was not the only hungover woman at work today. "Did Mary force you outside of your cave?"

"Mary did not," Lily had to admit. "I broke character for a night."

"I see," was all Anna said, before she closed her eyes and started humming under her breath.

Lily wasn't a coffee girl by any means, but had found over the course of two years at uni that a shot of espresso came in useful when one was recovering from a late night, even if _her_ late nights usually came as a result of coursework, not drinking - which reminded her, she needed to text Mary to find out what she'd put in that cocktail before her phone ran out of the precious little battery life it had left - so once she'd put on her apron, she got to work concocting a latte for herself. While her boss would certainly give her shit for coming in late for work, Kingsley was always happy to allow the girls to help themselves to as many drinks and snacks as they wanted, provided they didn't take the piss and clean him out of cranberry flapjacks.

"Get me an orange juice from the fridge, would you?" called Anna presently, while Lily was pumping her cup full of vanilla syrup to mask the flavour of any actual coffee. "I'm dying, and I can't move."

Lily may have looked like shit, but Anna - who always appeared as if she'd skipped in from an enchanted forest, tall and willowy, with soft brown waves curling around her shoulders - was positively gorgeous beneath the unforgiving ceiling lights. Granted, she was more used to hangovers than Lily, and had certainly made more of an effort with her appearance, but Lily had slept at her flat before, and seen the way she rolled out of bed in the mornings looking like an off-duty model. It was annoying, but not so much that she'd refuse to fetch her hungover friend some juice.

She grabbed a Tropicana bottle from the fridge, walked over to Anna and nudged it against her elbow. "Here you go, love."

"Thank you," said Anna, and smiled, in a slow, self-satisfied way, one finger rising to point at Lily's neck. "I knew that was a love bite."

Lily clapped a hand to her neck, her face flaming immediately. "What?!"

"I didn't know people still did love bites, actually—"

"I do _not_ have a love bite!" she insisted, and spun around to examine her neck in the reflective surface of the espresso machine. "It's just - I have a fucking love bite."

"You do."

"Buggering shit."

Sure enough, there it was, a fresh, reddish mark sitting halfway between her jaw and her shoulder, stark and bright against her pale skin, and impossible to ignore, now that her hair only came to her chin. Somehow, in the awkward tangle that had been her escape from her flat, she'd managed to miss it entirely.

She remembered, with such clarity despite her hungover state, how she'd gotten it, and how much it had excited her. She'd been branded, so everyone would know he'd had her, hadn't she? And hadn't she liked it? She remembered how he'd bitten down, at _her_ urging, very shortly before he came for the first time and collapsed on top of her, his mouth warm against her shoulder, dropping grateful kisses on her skin. The thought of it made her burn from the inside out. It had been so good. _He_ had been so good, and she'd basically abandoned him.

"Who did it?" said Anna. "Anyone I know? It wasn't Terry Heaney, was it? I know he's been terribly persistent, but—"

"Nobody you know," said Lily quickly.

"I might know him."

"He doesn't live here, he was visiting."

"Interesting." Lily's secret shame appeared to have shaken Anna out of her stupor; she stood up, cracking her spine, tossing the juice bottle between her hands. "Was he cute? I hope so."

Lily shrugged noncommittally.

"Well, did you take a photo?"

"No?"

Anna made a noise of disgust in the back of her throat. "So, I'll have to waste my break looking him up online? Thanks a lot."

"He was just some guy," Lily lied. Some perfect, beautiful guy with whom she may have been infatuated. "A friend of Remus's, from London."

"Oh," said Anna, blinking. "You don't mean lovely James, do you?"

Surprise, and alarm, seized her throat in a vice grip.

"I mean, please tell me it was, and that it wasn't Peter, he's so strange—"

"No!" Lily cried, offended by the very idea, also a little guilty. Peter couldn't help being unattractive, though she supposed he _could_ help sneezing into his hand and shaking hers with it. "How do _you_ know James?"

"He's up here all the time," said Anna, twisting the lid off her juice bottle. "We usually see the four of them in Shochu—"

"The karaoke bar?"

"The karaoke bar you _insist_ on refusing to come to? Yes, that one. He's done "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" with Arlène, like, twice."

"Oh," said Lily weakly.

"And, remember that time Jenn agreed to go for a drink with that library guy because he asked her in front of a bunch of people and she was too kind to say no, and then he got really aggressive with her when she wouldn't—"

"That was _him?!_ "

"No, you idiot!" said Anna, and took an annoyingly long mouthful of juice, presumably to punish her for her lack of sense. "You think I'd call him _lovely_ James if he'd done something like that? He's the one who spotted it and put a stop to the whole thing."

" _James_ was Jenn Costner's library date hero?"

Anna nodded. "She like, loves him now, but don't tell anyone you heard that from me."

"I thought she liked Sirius?"

"I mean, I don't know, they're both pretty."

"We're talking about the _same_ James, right?" said Lily, on the off-chance that there'd been a huge misunderstanding somewhere down the line. "Black hair, glasses—"

"—an unhealthy relationship with his cat?" Anna continued. "Yes, I mean James Potter. I'm Facebook friends with him, if you need me to check."

"Oh God," said Lily, and wished - not for the first time - that Kingsley had installed stools behind the counter, so that she might sit down and deal with the fact that _everyone,_ save her and Mary, it seemed, already knew the bloke she'd slept with and had collectively taken him into their hearts. "Oh _God._ Can I see?"

"Sure," said Anna, and fished her phone out of her apron pocket. She started to tap away at the screen. "This is why you need social media, you know."

"It wastes too much time."

Anna handed over the phone with a roll of her eyes. "Whatever. Knock yourself out."

Lily leaned against the counter, picking up her latte with one hand, perusing James Potter's Facebook with the other.

His profile photo was a shot of him, grinning widely at the camera and holding an ornery ginger cat - Algernon, she recalled, from something he'd said last night - whose side-eye game was impressively advanced. Most of his other photos featured the cat in some way, though many others were side-by-sides of him and Sirius in varying locales, group photos of him, Sirius, Remus and Peter, and a couple of him standing between what could only have been his parents. Further digging revealed some candid shots of his mother wearing a face mask, batting at the camera with a manicured hand, what appeared to be a professional photo shoot featuring only the cat, and prints of him and Sirius on various rollercoasters, assuming funny poses, such as one in which James appeared to be proposing marriage while Sirius pretended to cry.

The most recent picture on his timeline had been taken last night, in the pub, while he was still wearing the antlers. He had his arm thrown around Sirius's shoulder and had captioned it, quite simply, with _mates._

He had not updated his status to brag about the girl he'd gone home with and banged - in fact, his last status update was from several days back, and discussed the various ways in which Algernon had thwarted him that week - not that Lily had expected him to do something so crass, but she was glad of it, all the same.

"I slept with you," she told his photo, softly.

"What?" said Anna. "Like, fully? The whole way?"

She nodded. "Twice."

Anna laughed, a loud, ringing thing that clattered through Lily's throbbing skull like a collapsing tower of pots and pans. "Jess!" she cried, waving at the gift shop. "Lily had _sex_ with lovely James!"

Jess leapt out from behind the postcard tower like an excitable children's television presenter. "Seriously?!"

"Jess, too?" said Lily irritably, and took a mouthful of her latte, which still, despite her best efforts, tasted too much like coffee for her liking. She pulled a face. "Does _everyone_ know James but me?"

"I think you know him better than the rest of us," said Anna slyly. "Considering what you did last night."

"So, he hasn't - I mean, with any of the rest of you, not you or Arlène or—"

"He's never put a move on anyone that I know of."

"You're sure?"

"Seriously, guys?" cried Jess. "That's all you're gonna tell me?"

"I mean, he's always really nice and charming," Anna continued, looking thoughtful. "But that's the extent of it, and I'm pretty sure I'd know if he'd slept with any of the girls."

"Oh."

"How long have you known him, anyway?"

"Less than a day."

"And you've slept with him _twice?"_

"Please don't judge me right now—"

"I'm not judging!" Anna insisted, with a laugh. "I'm impressed by your speed, honestly. You shouldn't be ashamed of getting some from a cute guy, and I mean, as long as you were safe—"

Lily stared avidly into her coffee, lips pressed tightly together, and she could _feel_ Anna's eyebrows jump towards her hairline.

"You _were_ safe, right?"

"Well," she began, blushing hotly. "Define _safe—"_

"Are you joking?"

"We were drunk!" Lily protested, for her own benefit as much as Anna's, because the fact that reason had abandoned her last night was the most upsetting, and humiliating, aspect of this entire debacle. "I didn't - I never thought of it, or maybe I did in passing but I sort of let it go because again, I was _drunk_ , and it's not like I can get pregnant, or anything, I've got the implant—"

"Look, I don't think he seems like the type to be riddled with disease, but if you didn't use a condom—"

 _"Anna—"_

"—I'm just saying, make sure you go and get checked out in a few weeks, okay? If you've got Chlamydia, or something, you don't want to leave it untreated—"

"He _doesn't_ have Chlamydia."

"I'm sure he doesn't, but get yourself tested, anyway," said Anna. "And put some concealer on your neck before Kingsley shows up and hits the roof."

"You're right," Lily groaned, setting down her cup, and swooped to pick up her handbag, which she had shoved beneath the register with her foot. "Not the aesthetic one should present to our guests."

"Unless you'd like to work at an erotic museum?"

"Does England even have those?"

"Probably not, you're all so awfully repressed."

Lily gave a half-hearted laugh and swung her bag onto her shoulder, though her brief moment of mirth quickly turned into another groan. "I'm a fucking idiot, aren't I?"

"No, my heart, you're just a person—"

"A very stupid person."

"—a person who made one tiny, little mistake like all people do, and it's going to be _fine,"_ said Anna soothingly. "Go into the back and cover your bite, and don't be so hard on yourself."

"I don't _want_ to go and get checked out at a sexual health clinic."

"And I don't _want_ to go back to Sweden right after I graduate," Anna countered. "But Brexit is happening, and it's honestly not that bad, I get my birth control at Lime Tree and they're super nice, and Mary or I will go with you."

"You're nice."

 _"You're_ nice," Anna seconded. "Mary is nice, Jess is nice, orange juice is nice, now go." She pointed to the staff room door. "Nobody's gonna come in this early."

Anna had a quietly commanding air about her at times, and Lily, much like a child seeking help from her mother, felt compelled to obey her, so she shuffled into the staff room and devoted a couple of minutes to covering up the angry mark on her skin, which took considerable effort and a lot of makeup, because she was so ivory white that a mere flick could have bruised her. This was certainly going to bruise, and bruise badly, and people were going to notice, and she would be so embarrassed every time they did.

Beneath the shame, though, something about the bright red oval on her neck felt like she still had part of him with her, carrying him around, and it pleased her. His now. She shouldn't have liked that so much. His now. But she did.

Because she liked _him._ Only she'd gone and ruined it, probably.

When her neck was sufficiently covered, she sat down on a bench next to the lockers and extracted her phone from her bag. It was running pretty low - 8% battery - but she opened WhatsApp and fired off a text to Mary anyway.

 _Are you awake? Or alive? Sirius isn't a serial killer, is he?_

It took a minute or two of waiting - Kingsley wouldn't be in for another hour, so Lily felt pretty comfortable slacking off - but Mary saw her text and responded in kind.

 _BARELY alive. Awake just. In McDonald's buying gross breakfast URGH. SO pissed off._

 _What's wrong?_

 _Will explain later. You at work? Did you bang halapeno boy? Please tell me you did, one of us needs to bring some good news home today._

 _It's jalapeño, and yes. To both._

Mary's response, predictably, was a long string of exclamation points, which made Lily laugh despite herself, though it was with a more sobering tone that she sent her next reply.

 _Don't celebrate yet._

 _Oh no, was it shit?_

 _No, it was lovely. Better than lovely. Mind-blowing._

 _!_

 _But we didn't use a condom because I'm a fucking stupid idiot and I can't believe I made such a stupid fucking mistake. My mother is turning in her grave at this minute._

 _Oh stop, you're not an idiot. That happens to loads of people._

 _It does?_

 _Shit happens, girl._ _  
_ _And you've got your implant, you'll be fine._

Shit happens, or so said Mary. As if it wasn't a big deal, as if Lily had no reason to feel ashamed of herself, but here she was, ashamed anyway.

She rubbed her finger over the tiny lump in her left arm where her implant sat. She'd gotten that because of Aaron, because he'd been her boyfriend for a long time, and it was the sensible thing to do, but she'd always made him wear a condom despite his protests, and they'd fallen apart when uni edged him out. He couldn't handle coming second to her education, and he shouldn't have had to, and Lily wasn't sure if she'd ever really loved him, and that had been bad enough - that she'd lost her virginity to a boy she hadn't seen a future with. She wasn't religious, like her parents, both of whom had been raised by proudly Catholic families in the west of Ireland, and even her mother hadn't expected her to stay chaste until she was married, but she'd drilled into her head a certain mantra, and Lily felt, for a second time, that she had thrown some lovingly-given advice in the trash.

Only this time it was worse, because she'd potentially put herself at risk.

Lily hadn't had a panic attack in a long time - she'd spent a year working with a therapist after her parents' accident and the subsequent anxiety their deaths left her with - and she didn't want to have another now, not when the infraction she'd committed was so minor, according to her friends, and there probably wasn't a thing wrong with her. She was a _law_ student, for crying out loud. She handled an immense workload on a daily basis, held down a weekend job and hadn't once let her academic performance falter, even after her ugly breakup with Aaron. Even after she'd cut ties with Severus, which had been worse.

James Potter was just some bloke, and Lily had dealt with worse in her life than a silly mistake. She just needed to get through her shift, go home, have a nice cup of tea and sleep for eight solid hours, and she'd be fine.

She'd be fine.

* * *

"How was work?" said Mary, when she got in later, not feeling much better than she'd felt when she left the flat. It seemed as if everyone in Cambridge had been nursing a hangover that morning, because Kingsley had turned up late and sluggish, and didn't have the heart to lecture Lily for a crime he'd mirrored. They'd subsequently been rushed off their feet for the rest of the day, which gave her something to occupy her mind until closing, but also exhausted her.

"Tiring," she said, kicking off her shoes. Mary was lying flat on the floor with her feet on the armchair. "What are you doing?"

"Contemplating."

"Contemplating what?"

"How best to murder that shit mate of yours."

"Oh?"

"Or," said Mary. "Similarly, should we order Chinese or pizza tonight?"

"Those two conundrums are connected, are they?"

"Vengeance makes me hungry."

"Well, I can't afford a Chinese, or pizza—"

"I can."

"—and you clearly need to get something off your chest."

"What gave you that idea?"

"Your talk of murdering Sirius?" Lily pointed out. "Just now?"

"Oh, that," she sighed, and crossed one foot over the other. "Believe it or not, the fucker's only gone and taken a vow of chastity—"

 _"What?!"_

"Some philosophical thing he's got going on," Mary spat, waving one hand in the air above her head. "He's trying to become acquainted with his inner self, or something, so no sex for six months to keep his head clear, which would be fine, except he told me this _after_ I'd given him a handy."

Surprising as this was, it also seemed like just the sort of outlandish thing Sirius would do. "That wanker!"

"You're telling me."

"The absolute cheek of him!"

"Yeah, I know," said Mary dully.

"I can't believe he waited until you'd—"

"Anyway, I'm seeing him next week—"

Lily blinked repeatedly at her friend's prone body. "Pardon?"

"Oh, I know," said Mary, peeping up at her with 'don't hate me' eyes. "And you were worried I'd judge _you_ for not using a condom."

"I'd argue that not using a condom is worse, actually."

"Oh, please," Mary scoffed. "James looked pretty clean to me."

"Hygienic doesn't mean healthy."

"Maybe not, but it's a good sign." Mary rolled over on her front, moving her feet from the chair and kicking them into the air behind her. "So?"

"So, what?"

She quirked her eyebrows. "Are you going to tell me all about this mind-blowing sex you had?"

"And make you feel worse about your night of virtue? Not right now," Lily retorted. "I need a bath first, and a cup of tea. And possibly that Chinese you were talking about ordering."

"Alright, but you _have_ to tell me over special-fried rice, agreed?"

"Agreed."

"Perfect. Consider yourself dismissed."

Lily mock-saluted her, stalked off, and pushed open her bedroom door to find that someone had tidied her room for her.

It wasn't exactly a spring-clean job, and had clearly been done in a bit of a hurry, but Lily's bed was made, quite neatly, and her curtains had been pulled open to let in what would, at the time, have been daylight, and the clothes and underwear she'd left strewn around the flat had been nicely folded and left in her chair. Even her pillows had been fluffed up to expect her presence.

"Mary?" she called over her shoulder, her eyes fixed on her bed. "Did you clean up in here?"

"I've barely gotten off the floor since I got home," Mary replied.

So it must have been James. She'd run out on him without so much as a backwards glance, and he'd still been considerate enough to tidy up.

That was so _sweet_.

What business had he to be so lovely when she was in such a tizzy over this?

Folded primly on the duvet was a piece of paper, torn from an open notebook that sat on her windowsill. She picked it up, holding it delicately, like a hanky between her fingertips, and opened it, bracing herself for a rejection, or an awkward scrawling of 'well, that was fun, but let's not do it again,' and hoping - though she wouldn't admit it aloud - that he'd left her some sort of means by which she could contact him.

She found none of those things in the note he left, but the resulting head-rush it gave her was no less effective.

 _just in case i don't see you again, thanks for last night, was smashing_  
 _you're the prettiest girl i've ever met, by the way, i'm eternally grateful that you let me do stuff to you_  
 _over and out_  
 _james x_

She sat down on her bed, hard, her fingers splaying on the pillow where James had laid his head last night, feeling as if she'd had a rug pulled out from beneath her feet, aware of the lingering scent - of him, of _sex_ \- on her sheets, feeling as if she'd done something entirely stupid when she walked out of her room and left him there alone.

But she hadn't. She had a plan. He wouldn't fit. _Couldn't_ fit.

She had to put him out of her head.

* * *

The problem was, she _couldn't_ put him out of her head.

She tried, she really did. It wasn't as if she didn't have any number of distractions to keep her mind occupied. Unlike Mary, Remus and the rest of her mates, Lily didn't have winter exams to study for, but her workload was as crushing as ever, and every moment spent outside of lectures and seminars was spent reading journal articles – probably more, in fact, than she might have read if she hadn't been trying to forget about the stupid, beautiful boy she'd spent one stupid, beautiful night with.

When she skipped art class, on Halloween day, she'd texted Remus and told him that she had a paper to finish – a bald-faced lie, because she'd finished the essay on Sunday – rather than admit that she was embarrassed by the way she'd acted on Friday night, and that she couldn't face knowing what James had said about her when he returned from her flat. When she skipped another class, a week later, Remus was informed that she had the flu, another lie she'd spun, telling herself she'd spend the night constructing skeleton structures for future essays.

Lily spent that Tuesday lying on the couch with a bag of Doritos and two litres of Diet Coke, signed-in to Mary's Facebook as part of a deal they'd struck, stalking James through Sirius Black's profile, pretending she didn't care that his relationship status was set to 'Single,' and remained as such after upwards of thirty refreshes. London was a busy place, and he was in real danger of bumping into the love of his life on any street corner, or in any tube station, or in a fashionable warehouse art gallery full of pretentious, glass-box installations. She was merely keeping vigilant.

Not that she cared, or cared all that much.

She actually _did_ have required reading to get on with when she missed the third class, which she explained to Remus, and to Trelawney during an angry phone call, along with an ardent promise to return as soon as her workload eased up, lest she suffer as an artist and 'lose her vision,' if one could ever cultivate artistic vision simply from looking at Sirius's naked, tattooed arse and frankly unimpressive – she now had first hand experience of better – penis, every sodding Tuesday.

By the time she skipped the fourth class, she wasn't even trying to think up a lie. She didn't even text Remus, which wasn't fair, because he'd been enquiring after her health, and it was really Sirius she wanted to avoid. Remus was far too decent to say anything, but Sirius - who, according to Mary, had not been speaking favourably of Lily when she was mentioned in conversation - was sure to roast her.

The last thing she needed, or wanted, or felt equipped to deal with, was Sirius Black announcing to Trelawney's class that his best mate had been 'balls deep inside Evans,' while she tried to sketch his spinal cord and get on with her life.

She missed James, and it was so bloody _stupid_ because she'd known him for all of five minutes, and it had been twenty-four days - she'd kept count - since she'd left him in her bedroom and sped to the safety of her part-time job, but he stubbornly refused to leave her befuddled brain, persisted in lingering on her pillow, even if the smell of him was gone and she simply liked to pretend that it was there. She'd even kept the note he left her in her bedside drawer, half-cracked for a bloke she barely knew, and she didn't know what magic he'd employed to make her crazy, but it wasn't bloody fair.

She'd left it too long, though. She knew it, and she knew he'd know it. She could have gotten his number from Remus. She could have sent him a light, breezy text message, something along the lines of _'Hey, it's Lily Evans. Remember me? You gave me three orgasms and I think I'm obsessed with you hahaha lol jk I'm not insane, but do you want to have lunch and also we should get married, thoughts?'_

But she hadn't, and it was far too late for any sort of gesture now.

Besides, and of this she often reminded herself, he hadn't made any effort to contact her, which made his position perfectly clear. Why should she be the one to put herself out there for someone who obviously wasn't that interested?

"You're moping again," said Mary coldly.

She wasn't scheduled to work at the pub until the weekend, and seemed resentful of Lily for robbing her of yet another Tuesday evening that could have been spent alone in the flat, just her and the David Tennant cutout, practising kissing, or whatever it was Mary did to him when nobody else was around.

"I'm not moping," said Lily stubbornly, pulling her comforter closer to her chin. "I'm constipated."

This, at least, was true. Clearly, the intricacies of civil litigation were causing undue stress, because Lily hadn't been able to shift a thing since yesterday morning. She did not, at least, thanks to a surprisingly comforting trip with Mary to Lime Tree and a very understanding nurse, have Chlamydia, Gonorrhea or Syphilis.

She also had a handful of free condoms. So that was nice.

"Take some senna," Mary suggested, and handed her a mug of tea before she flung herself down on the sofa.

"Oh yeah, sorry, I'll just snip some leaves off the plant we haven't been growing."

"You're moody today."

"So are you."

"Yeah, but I was moody first," Mary countered. "And _you've_ been moody over the same bloke for weeks, it's getting boring."

"I'm not—"

"Let's not have this argument again, yeah? God knows what kind of orgasm this bloke gave you that's made you such a _girl—"_

"It wasn't like that!"

"Sorry, I meant orgasms plural."

"No, it's not - I meant it wasn't the orgasms." She took a sip of her tea - Mary always brewed it to perfection. "It was the other stuff."

"What other stuff?"

"You know," she said, blushing faintly at the memory. "All the talking in the pub, and the way he - like, when he kissed my forehead, that was so sweet—"

"When did he kiss your forehead?"

"After we'd... you know."

"Fucked?"

"Mary," said Lily sternly. "Do you have to be so crass?"

"Yes, Jane Austen, I do." She waved both hands in Lily's direction. "Continue."

"Well - yeah, so there was that, and, I mean, I normally _hate_ cuddling in bed because it's so hot and uncomfortable and I want my own space, but it felt so nice with him and I fell asleep like it was nothing, and just—" Mary had started to laugh, and Lily pulled a face at her. "What?"

"Nothing," said Mary, in a sing-song tone that told her that it was far from nothing. "This just explains everything, that's all."

Lily frowned, and pressed her mug of tea to her chest, a gesture she'd learned from her mother that she found oddly comforting. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, you amateur, that you did it all wrong. No wonder you're still mooning over him."

"What?"

"You were supposed to fuck him—"

"I did!"

"No, you didn't," said Mary flatly. "Fucking isn't gazing into each other's eyes and having your fucking forehead kissed and being snuggled to sleep afterwards, that's romantic shit, that's making love. You made love, you fucking idiot, and that's _not_ how you one-night stand."

"We did not _make love—"_

"You did."

"You're just—"

"I can't believe he didn't propose afterwards, honestly," she added, unfurling from the couch. "Pause the telly, I need a wee."

"It's a repeat of _Bargain Hunters_ , what on earth do you think you'll miss?"

But Mary had gone, dashing off to the toilet without so much as a backwards glance, leaving Lily to contemplate the weight of her words.

Was her friend right? Had she and James somehow transcended the tenuous non-bond of a one-night stand and formed something different, something stronger, something that might explain why Lily felt as if she couldn't let him go?

Was it possible that _her_ behaviour, pushing for sex when he'd kissed her so sweetly, and basically running from her own flat the next morning, had convinced him that she wasn't interested in anything more than what he'd given her?

Might he still think about her?

Would it really be so hard to maintain a relationship with someone she wanted as much as she wanted James, still, after just one night together and twenty-four days of total silence? She hadn't wanted Aaron enough, he'd just been there. A habit from her teens. He hadn't made her feel the way James had made her feel, and she wasn't sure what that was, exactly, only that she'd never felt that way about anyone else, and it didn't look as if those feelings were going to let up anytime soon.

Was she a giant bloody fool if she didn't at least _try_ to talk to him again?

She set down her tea and picked up her phone instead, realising as she did that she'd completely forgotten to pause the program they were watching, opened up her WhatsApp chat with Remus and stared at the last message she'd sent, a cheerful, ' _Yeah, I'm definitely up for lunch soon, only not this week because I'm super busy!'_

She'd need to explain, she supposed, that she'd been battling through a storm of self-inflicted shame, because nobody, from Anna to Mary to the nurse at Lime Tree, had made her feel remotely small for what she and James had done, she'd put all of that on herself. She'd also need to explain that she was nuts, but Remus would understand, she hoped, and give her James's number with minimal fuss.

 _Hey!_ she typed. _So this is going to sound weird, but I need to_

"Lily?" said Mary, shuffling into the living room with her legs pressed together. "Pretty-honey-sweetie-darling?"

She looked up at her friend. "Oh, now you're being nice?"

"I'm always delightful," she said airily. "Also, can I nick one of your tampons? Forgot to pick some up this morning."

"I don't have any."

"Seriously?"

"I only buy them when I'm on."

"Yeah, and weren't you on last week?"

"No," she said, and frowned, because it was the 21st, but she'd been due... "No, I wasn't..."

Her voice disappeared, sucked from her body as if by an invisible vacuum, and the hairs on her arms were standing on end, and something hot, and sick, and _terrible_ , swooped up from her stomach and into the back of her throat.

It was the 21st. The _fucking_ 21st. Lily had been due her period around the 13th.

Eight days ago.

She'd been due _eight days ago._

"Oh my God," she muttered, feeling breathless.

Mary's eyes widened like saucers. "No way."

"No," Lily repeated, staring blindly at her friend, utterly frozen where she sat, her voice returned but belonging to somebody else now, growing higher and higher in pitch. Panicked. Terrified. "No. No, no, _no."_

 _No._

* * *

 **A/N:** Congratulations to the handful of people who guessed this twist. My boy James has gone and done it now.


	6. Ta-Dah!

**Author's Note:** What's up, guys? Time for an update, finally! This chapter grew far too long and I really wasn't happy with it. It felt really out of place for this one chapter to be double the length of every other one, so for now, here's part one. The next should hopefully be with you tomorrow or Saturday. The song for this chapter is mentioned in the second scene.

Please enjoy, and I'd like to preface this chapter by promising, 100%, that the next chapter - and indeed, the rest of this fic - is going to be all James Potter, all the time. There was meant to be more of him in this chapter than there is now, but soon you'll be sick of him, honestly (that's a lie - who could ever be sick of James?)

 **Chapter 5**

 **Ta-Dah!**

She had told James - then, before her life erupted like a cola bottle geyser - that she'd once wanted to be a private detective, and Lily felt like one now, skulking in the darkened entrance of the closed sandwich shop that stood across the road from Trelawney's house, with her hood pulled down almost over her face to protect from an unprecedented downpour, watching the front door like a hawk and waiting for her mark to make an appearance.

It wasn't fun, like she'd thought it would be as a curious, idealistic child. It wasn't anything. It didn't feel like anything because all she was capable of feeling was the rock-hard knot of anxiety that had settled in her chest one week ago, given every sheen-coated plan she'd ever made a hasty middle-finger, and covered itself in cement.

Mary had suggested she go to Trelawney's class and talk to Remus that way, because really, wasn't standing outside in the rain a little dramatic? Wasn't it something Sirius would do in a crisis situation? Wasn't Lily likely to get a cold if she stayed outside for too long in such terrible weather, and wouldn't that be bad for the baby?

Baby. Baby. _Baby._

She might as well have called it a deluge.

It was alright for Mary, this only affected her in an abstract sort of way. She'd cleaned the toilet after the sheer emotional upheaval of three positive tests saw Lily hunched over the porcelain to spill her guts like a popped water balloon. She'd held her hair then, and her hand, at the doctor's office the next day, but Mary didn't have to walk around wondering if the things she touched and drank and ingested were good for the baby. Mary could have some pâté on toast without worrying that she'd pass listeria to the baby. Mary wasn't grappling with the prospect of dropping out of uni because she couldn't afford the baby. Mary had slept pretty well for the past few nights because she wasn't being kept up with terrifying thoughts of the baby. And Mary cared, so much, but Lily was alone, and frightened, and not yet ready for someone, _anyone_ , to look her in the eye in all seriousness and say, "Won't that be bad for the baby?"

Babies didn't get you from the day they were born, they got you from the day you knew they existed, and Lily had silenced her with a look.

This fucking, fucking, _fucking_ baby.

She hated this fucking baby.

But she wanted this fucking baby.

* * *

Remus was one in a procession of students who filed out of Trelawney's house with rucksacks slung over their backs, visible in the darkness only by the light from a nearby street lamp. When he paused at her front gate to open his umbrella, Lily dashed across the empty road, splashing through a deceptively deep puddle that immediately soaked her trainers and socks.

She'd probably catch a cold and be forced to sit in silence while Mary rubbed VapoRub into her back and assured her in anxious tones that embryonic pneumonia wasn't a thing, which didn't sound so bad, at least, not the back rub. She could have used a massage, if it were permissible for pregnant women to get them. That was yet another question to add to the list of hundreds, and with each one came the growing certainty that she was an utterly terrible mother in the making.

Her friend jumped slightly as she appeared around the side of Trelawney's forest green Fiat Punto, his eyes widening. "Lily?"

"Remus!" she cried, in an attempt to sound breezy that fell flat on its face before it left her lips. "Just the man I was looking for!"

"You weren't in class—"

"I know, I know, I had a thing," she said, and stepped beneath the umbrella that Remus extended towards her. "No Sirius?"

"Sirius is still inside."

"Getting dressed?"

"Packing up," said Remus, looking pained. "He's joined the class."

"Are you serious?"

"Trelawney finally decided that we needed to move on to still life compositions, so she offered him unlimited free lessons as a thank you for his hard work."

"But all he did was sit there naked."

"That was enough to satiate whatever primal urge Trelawney tried and failed to conceal from us, it seems." Remus shifted his weight from one foot to another, inadvertently jerking the umbrella and sending droplets of rainwater skittering in all directions. "Are you alright?"

Lily didn't know how to tell him that she'd spent the past week skipping uni, watching _Riverdale_ in her pyjamas and crying snotty tears into her pillow because an incompetent masked killer on the loose in a small town somehow didn't seem as terrifying as her own predicament. "Fantastic, thanks. I was just hoping to talk to you."

"About...?"

"Maybe we could go and sit down somewhere? Get a hot chocolate or something?" she suggested, as Sirius appeared in Trelawney's doorway and came bounding down the garden path as if he'd caught Remus being mugged, not simply chatting to a friend. "Just you and me? I don't think Sirius would—"

"Evans," said Sirius coldly, halting before her.

She lifted her hand for a half-hearted wave. "Hi, Sirius."

"It's been some time."

"Um - yeah, I suppose?"

Sirius was looking at her as if she was a snail in his lunch. "What's a dame like you doing in a place like this?"

"Why are you talking like we're in a film noir?"

"He watched _The Big Sleep_ last night and thinks he's Humphrey Bogart all of a sudden," said Remus, and elbowed his friend's chest. "Shut up, Sirius. Lily needs to talk to me about something, so we're going to Costa, maybe?"

She nodded. "Costa is fine."

"Anything to get out of this rain."

"All three of us, I assume?" said Sirius.

"No, just me and Lil."

"Oh." The downpour was so heavy that Sirius's long hair was already rain-sodden, but he didn't seem to care that Remus hadn't offered him the same shelter he'd offered Lily. "Working your way through my mates, are you?"

 _"Sirius—"_

She felt herself shrink into her shoulders a little, which wouldn't have happened if she'd been at full strength, but she was so far from okay that her usual talent for a cutting comeback had all but disintegrated into nonexistence. "I wasn't—"

"It's nothing," said Remus firmly.

"I think she deserves to hear it," said Sirius. "He's our best mate—"

"—and a grown man."

"I wouldn't have thought you capable, Evans," Sirius continued. "You seemed so sweet and innocent."

"Let's go, Lily," said Remus loudly, and gripped her elbow to tug her away. "Before Sirius says something stupid and offensive, as he so often loves to do."

"You enabler," Sirius accused.

Out of the corner of her eye, Lily saw Remus roll his eyes to heaven. "Sod off and go home," he called over his shoulder. "And remember to get toilet paper on the way."

"I'll remember to forget."

"Of course he will," said Remus under his breath.

They didn't speak properly again - nothing but meaningless comments about the weather, or a quick exchange of orders - until they'd made the short walk to the Costa Coffee on Mill Road and settled in at a table, with a tea for Lily and a hot chocolate for Remus. As he joined her at the table with their drinks, she remembered far too late that Sirius had let Mary give him a handjob before announcing his vow of chastity, and that she should have given him a bollocking for it, rather than wilt away like the meek, witless woman she wasn't.

Whitesnake's "Here I Go Again" was playing on the café's speakers, which was prophetic, or depressing, or both. She'd been going it alone since her parents' deaths, with little or no help from anyone, including and most especially her sister, who rarely answered her texts and phoned her only when she had a big announcement to brag about. The last one had been about a big deal her husband had struck with a prominent building contractor that would be greatly beneficial to his drill company.

Petunia would be livid when she found out about the pregnancy.

Before she told her sister, though, Lily needed to tell James, and it had to be face-to-face, or she would be the worst possible version of herself. For that, she needed Remus, who normally had a gift for inspiring calm, but some situations were too fraught to be soothed, even by him.

"So," he said, after a brief chat about their respective workloads. "What did you want to talk about?"

"Just things," she said, rather lamely.

"What things?"

"I don't see why we have to get into it _immediately—"_

"And if I was less worried about you, I'd agree," said Remus emphatically, wiping a drop of whipped cream from the edge of his mug and pressing his finger into a napkin. "But you've been acting off lately and this place is only open for another hour, so getting into it immediately might be in both our best interests."

"How are you more mature than I am?"

Remus grinned, and picked up his drink. "You can thank congenital heart disease for that one."

"And my dead parents count for nothing?"

"I've had my problem since birth," he reminded her. "You've got years to go yet. Tell me what you need to talk about, and I'll preface this conversation by assuming you haven't brought me here to give me my half of that cake."

Remus wasn't the one to hold her hand through all of this, but his joke helped, and he hadn't turned on her like Sirius appeared to have done.

"Alright," she agreed, and pursed her lips to expel a puff of air. "So, do you remember your friend, James?"

"I've known him since I was five, so there's a vague recollection." Remus didn't look surprised by the mention of him. "He said things went a little south with you two."

"He did?"

Remus nodded.

"What do you mean, things went a little south?" she said, and didn't bother trying to hide the dismay. "What did he say?"

"Just that - well, he's not the type to share details, honestly - he only said that you had a nice night together, but that you didn't seem too happy with him the next morning."

"He said that?"

Again, Remus nodded. "Not verbatim, but you know—"

"Oh, God," Lily groaned, and buried her face in her hands. "Of course he bloody did."

"Did he do something to upset you, or—"

 _"No."_

"Then what happened?"

She ran her palms along her face, then rubbed her middle fingers across her lower eyelids. "Nothing. I really liked him, but I woke up with my mum's bloody voice in my head, went into a shame spiral and acted like a total idiot, which apparently made him feel like I didn't."

"Ah."

"Blame the societal conditioning that made me this way," she instructed him, and dropped her hands on the table. "Or my parents, but not me. Maybe a little bit me. This is such a mess."

Remus was smiling knowingly at his hot chocolate. "So you do like him, then?"

"He and I can't happen."

"But you just said—"

"Do I think he's the fittest man I've ever met? Yes. Would I have gone out with him if he'd asked me to, at the time? Of course. Only a lunatic wouldn't, but honestly, that doesn't even matter now and it's not what I should be thinking about."

"Why not?"

"Doesn't matter," she said, and shook her shoulder as if to displace an irksome fly. "It's just that I need to talk to him about something, and I'd rather do it face-to-face, so I was hoping you'd invite him up this weekend."

"Why?" Remus let out a dry laugh. "You're not pregnant, are you?"

He said it like it was the funniest, most impossible thing he could imagine - his studious, responsible, I've-got-a-plan-for-everything friend getting knocked up by his best mate after a drunken night of unprotected sex - and Lily felt as if he'd thrown his drink in her face.

"Yeah," she said, in a deadened kind of way.

She hadn't wanted to tell anyone but Mary until she talked to James, but there was no hiding the hollow misery in her sleep-deprived face, as sure as the rain that hammered relentlessly on the pavement outside, and she watched his brown eyes widen as the truth sank in, reflecting her own feelings back at her.

"You're—" He touched his mouth with the tips of his three middle fingers, staring not at her but though her, it seemed. "Really?"

She nodded.

"This isn't a joke?"

"I think I'm funny enough to think of something better than that, Remus," she said, though she could feel a now-familiar pricking in the corners of her eyes, and a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob escaped her. "Come on, now."

"Oh my God."

"Yup."

"I'm _so_ sorry, Lil, I didn't mean—"

"It's fine."

"No, I shouldn't have said - I just - oh my God," he repeated. He looked mortified, either by her news or by the poor-timing of his own joke, staring at her as if an extra head had spouted from her shoulder. "But you - I didn't think—"

"—that I'd be that stupid?"

"No, of course not," he said, looking panicked. "I meant that I assumed you'd used something."

"I have a birth control implant, which I thought was working because like an idiot I lost track of dates," she said, annoyed by the solitary tear that slid down her cheek, so strangely juxtaposed with the cold, clinical way in which she was speaking. "But it wasn't, and neither of us so much as mentioned a condom, so I can kiss goodbye to my PhD and your friend is going to be a father, which just about covers it, I think, so you'll understand why I need to see him as soon as possible."

"You're keeping the baby?"

She nodded, and brushed her thumb across her cheek to wipe the tear away, straining her eyes to keep more from spilling. Her tea was going to get cold.

"So, what are you going to do about uni?" he said. He still looked utterly bamboozled, but he was taking the news better than Mary, who had stupidly suggested vodka before realising that a night of heavy drinking wouldn't be an option for Lily, at which point she had sat down and given herself in to a bout of nervous, hysterical laughter for a good five minutes. "Are you going to finish the year first? Will you take—"

"I love you, Remus," she interrupted. There was a table between them, but if there weren't, she would have put a hand on his shoulder. "I really do. You're one of my best friends, and as much as I think you'd be a great shoulder to cry on, I don't - I can't talk about this right now because I don't _know_ , and honestly I don't even want to."

"That's understandable, I suppose."

"Also, I think I'm supposed to be having these discussions with the father first."

"Right," said Remus. "The father." He wrapped his hands around his mug. _"Shit."_

"What?"

"Nothing."

Lily's nerves were too frayed for her to let that go. "He's going to hate me, isn't he?"

"He'd never—"

"He's going to think I got pregnant on purpose, or he won't want anything to do with the baby, or—"

"No, of course not!" said Remus quickly, the volume of his voice rising a little higher than perhaps he would have liked. "James is one of the best people I know, he'll step up and do the right thing. It's just strange to think of him having a baby, that's all."

Her racing heart, lately so quick to assume the worst, slowed a little. "Oh."

"He's always wanted to be a dad."

"Has he?"

"Yeah, even when we were kids. Sirius and I thought it was a little weird, to be honest."

There was no reason to point out that James probably wanted to become a father in the same way most people would - when he was older, and in a long-lasting, stable relationship with someone he loved and trusted enough to want to make children with - because they both already knew.

She toyed with the sleeve of her rain-dampened hoodie. "Have you - you and Sirius and James, and Peter - have you all been friends since you were children?"

"Best mates since Year 1," said Remus. "The four of us have always been tight-knit, but James and Sirius are like nothing else I've ever seen."

"They're very close?"

"Like brothers, except most brothers I know don't get along as well as they do."

"And Sirius is protective of him?"

Remus frowned. "If this is about what he said—"

"He hates me now, I suppose."

"No, he doesn't, he's just being dramatic. I think James was a little downcast because he thought, incorrectly, as we now know, that you weren't interested in seeing him again, and Sirius took offence. He's of the belief that everyone who knows James must love him as much as he does, or they're not worth speaking to."

A week ago, the news that James had wanted to see her again would have been music to her ears. Now, all it did was add to her trash heap of guilt and confusion. The bloody baby had pulverised any hope she had of starting something light and fun, and seeing where it went from there. Romance, now, had to be the last thing on her mind.

"Well, that's great," she said. "I can't wait to make everything better by ruining his best friend's life. Sirius will be over the moon."

"What Sirius thinks won't matter—"

"It'll matter to James—"

"It won't," said Remus firmly. "Sirius is his best friend, not his keeper, and I already told you, James is a good bloke. He'll take care of you."

"I can take care of myself, you know."

"I'm well aware," he said, with a sad, apologetic smile, and in a most un-Remus-like gesture, reached across the table to cover her hand with his own. "But he'll take care of you anyway."

* * *

Lily didn't catch a cold, and she and Remus hatched a plan between them.

James was contacted by phone right there in the café - while Lily sat across the table and nervously shredded a napkin to pieces with her fidgeting fingers, her stomach flip-flopping at the distant sound of his voice - and lured to Cambridge under the pretence of, "Sirius is missing you, why don't you pop up on Saturday and surprise him?" which, apparently, was not an uncommon request for Remus to make, and served the twofold purpose of getting James there and keeping Sirius in the dark about it.

Remus suspected, and Lily strongly agreed, that it was best for all involved if Sirius didn't know of the impending visit. He would likely refuse to give them any privacy, and his presence would only make things difficult.

Knowing that there _was_ a plan did nothing to dissipate her anxieties, but it gave her the focus she needed to stop skipping uni and return to her coursework. She had three days to fill, so she busied herself in catching up on what she'd missed at school, while Mary threw out all of her microwave meals, presented her with hearty, home-cooked dinners in the evenings and reminded her to take her folic acid. Lily did as she was bidden and ate as much as she could, though she had no appetite to speak of, and always present was that knot of worry, but at least she had graduated from dirty sweatpants and ridiculous-yet-addictive teen drama shows.

If she had been faced with any other problem, Lily would have tackled it head on, with research, lists and careful planning, but everything seemed pointless until she spoke to James and knew for sure if she was bringing this baby into the world by herself, or as part of a team.

To spare herself unnecessary pain, she told herself she'd be alone, and tried to disregard everything Remus had told her.

Saturday took an age to come, and saw Lily trudging to the museum though the downpour that had battered the city for almost a week, wrapped in an oversized raincoat, complete with hat, gloves and scarf, which had been forced upon her by her increasingly watchful housemate. The past week-and-a-half had seen Mary morph from a carefree Classics student to Sarah Connor in a floral-print dress and woollen tights, utterly convinced that she alone stood between Lily's baby - whom she had named Mary Junior - and certain death. She wouldn't have been surprised to come home from uni one day to find Mary poised in the living room with a ceremonial sword, which she would lay at Lily's feet in order to swear fealty to her unborn child.

James was driving up at some point in the early afternoon, so said Remus, in order to arrive after Sirius was out of the house. She had a full shift to get through first, made all the more difficult by the presence of Kingsley, who was in a bad mood after a terrible Tinder date from the night before.

"I had to make him grilled cheese sandwiches when he got back because he was so depressed," said Anna moodily. She and Kingsley had been living together since the day he'd walked out on his long-term boyfriend and turned up on her doorstep with nothing but the clothes on his back and the Croquade waffle maker he'd won in an argument with said ex. "He woke me up at 2am, looking for comfort, as if I was his fucking mama," she added, with a glare for their boss. "You human disaster."

"Jesus, Kingsley," said Lily, wiping down the counter with a damp rag, privately thinking that she'd gladly swap her current situation for one date with a man who confessed halfway through the evening that his favourite show was _The Big Bang Theory,_ and that she'd be able to handle it with a lot more grace than Kingsley had. She'd woken up feeling nauseous, and she wasn't sure if it was just nerves or the beginnings of morning sickness.

"You don't understand, you're both young and pretty," Kingsley retorted. "Your whole lives are ahead of you. I'm a geriatric—"

"You're forty-two," said Anna.

"You've had three stalkers," Lily put in.

"Not in years," Kingsley reminded her, running a hand over his shiny bald head. "My problem, children, is that I'm one of those beautiful, interesting people who carries on being beautiful but eventually stops being interesting, and all I can land at my age are the dregs who don't mind that I'm too old to stay out all night."

"Isn't Leicester playing today?" said Anna desperately. Kingsley could always be counted upon to slip into his office whenever his beloved football team were playing to watch the match on Sky Go.

"Yes, against Burnley, but not until 3."

"Well, go to the office anyway," Anna instructed. "There's a tsunami outside, it'll be dead for another few hours, and I'm sick of the sight of you."

Kingsley huffed and puffed, but Anna's grilled cheese sandwiches were too good for him to risk losing, so he dragged his huge, muscular body into the back room, leaving the girls alone. Not one person had entered the café since they'd opened an hour earlier, due to the rain, which was reaching critical mass.

"Sometimes, I really want to murder him," Anna sighed. "But he'll probably still be living with me when he's eighty."

"What about when you move back to Sweden?"

"He'll follow me there."

"He hates flying."

"On a handmade raft, if necessary." She hoisted herself up onto the counter's edge. "What's got you upset?"

"Nothing," said Lily, realising as she did that she had been wiping the exact same spot for several minutes. "I feel a bit ill from last week, that's all."

"It seems like that was a bad flu you had."

"Tell me about it. I spent all of last weekend in bed." This, technically, was not a lie, but two other people had already found out about the baby before its father, which felt unfair to James, so Lily was determined to keep it under wraps until further notice. "Caught up on _Riverdale,_ though."

"The Black Hood is totally Betty's dad, right?"

"You reckon?"

"It has to be," she said, her hands flying animatedly into the air. "Remember when he called Betty and said that her mother was a thorn in _both_ their sides, and how he tried to get her to break up with—"

But while Anna was discussing her theory in depth, Lily was distracted by the arrival of their first customer of the day, who sped into the café with a spider's twitch, his wet feet squelching on the tiled floor, raindrops sparkling in his greasy black hair, and headed determinedly in Lily's direction.

Her heart sank.

"Lily," said Severus, greeting her, as he always did, in a desperate, breathy voice, as if he were a war veteran returning to his wife after ten long years on a deserted island.

"No," she replied, and moved towards Anna, who had noticed Sev's presence and slid off the counter. Undaunted, Severus stepped sideways to keep Lily within reach, or as close to it as possible

"I just need five minutes of your time," he said, his dark eyes roving over her face. "Please?"

"Fuck off, Snape," said Anna coldly.

Severus bristled, the features of his pallid face twisting into a scowl. "What would your boss think if I told him that you speak to customers like this?"

"I'm so sorry," she sweetly amended, and tossed a tea towel over her shoulder. "Kindly fuck off."

Severus had been approaching Lily in various locales - work, uni and once outside her flat - on random occasions over the past six months, hoping to convince her to reverse her decision to end their friendship. Depending on her mood, she could sometimes find herself drawn into an argument, but today she was far too stressed to deal with another of Severus's heartfelt pleas. Besides which, she was starting to feel as if she might throw up for real.

She slipped behind the espresso machine and waited for Anna to handle the situation.

"Where's your manager?" Snape spat. "I want to lodge a formal complaint against you."

"Kingsley doesn't speak to racists."

"I'm _not_ a racist!"

"So you go to anti-Muslim rallies for the free snacks?"

"If you ever listened to what Riddle has to say, and stopped subscribing to mindless, leftist propaganda—"

"Should I have him thrown out, Lily?"

"—or even read his manifesto, you'd see that we operate on a platform of protecting Britain's values—"

"Yes, from non-white immigrants and harmless religions, we know," Anna interrupted. "I think I _will_ have you thrown out. Hang on while I fetch our manager, he can tell you all about his Tanzanian mother while he's dragging you out the door."

"I didn't come here to argue about politics with the likes of you," Severus snarled, as Anna made to turn around. "I came here to talk to Lily."

"Lily doesn't want to talk to you."

"She's right," Lily agreed, sidling out from behind the espresso machine. Severus loved nothing more than an opportunity to climb atop his soapbox and stay there for far too long, and her brain was processing too much to spare energy for a conversation leaden with passive-aggressive attempts to make her guilty. She had to get him out before he got into his stride. "I don't want to talk to you, and you should leave."

His expression softened into something slavish and adoring, which was uncomfortable to witness. "Lily—"

"Please, just go."

"—your hair has grown a little, it's really pretty."

"I'll tell Anna to fetch Kingsley if you don't leave."

"Twelve years, we were friends," he reminded her, somewhat pathetic looking with his dripping wet hair and waxy skin, in a thin old jacket that was too small for him because he'd had it for a decade and couldn't afford to replace it. "A real friend would respect differences in opinion, not abandon me for them."

Lily sighed, and brought her hands to her temples. Severus had been one of her best friends since she was a child, until her long-held, niggling feeling of doubt regarding some dubious political leanings grew too big to ignore, and after she cut him out she found - despite the pain, and despite her fear that she had deprived him of his only real source of emotional support - that she could breathe in a way she hadn't been able to before. Their friendship had been marked by fits of jealousy and possessiveness on his part, and towards the end she had been painfully aware that his feelings for her were rather more than platonic.

She wondered what Severus would think if he found out she was pregnant, and especially what he'd say if he could see the father for himself.

"I'm not feeling well, Severus, so I can't deal with this today," she said, massaging her head with her fingers. She was definitely going to throw up soon.

"It won't take long—"

"Besides, I got a verbal warning the last time you came here," she lied. The last time Snape had come, oozing contrition and brimming with pleas, only to turn nasty when she refused to listen, Kingsley had taken her into the back and brewed her a cup of jasmine tea to cheer her up. "Just leave, please, before Anna gets Kingsley and you get us both in trouble."

Severus looked between the two girls, silent for a moment. Lily could practically see the cogs turning in his brain.

"Fine," he said eventually. "I'll go, but only because I don't want you to lose your job. This conversation is _not_ over—"

"Yes, Sev, it is."

"—and I'll speak to you when you're feeling better," he finished, ignoring her completely, and turned on his heel.

"Prick," said Anna darkly, as Severus slouched out the way he'd came. "You're not nearly mean enough to him, you know."

"I know."

"I've heard you tear men apart for less in pubs."

"I know," Lily repeated. "But you heard him, we were friends for twelve years. It's hard to be cruel to someone you once cared about. Still care about, really."

"I can give you lessons, if you like. Just observe me with Kings."

"But Kings is nice, really."

"Exactly." Anna shrugged. "And I'm awful to him. Snape deserves so much worse."

"I need to use the loo," she said. "Back in a second."

Perhaps Anna would think she had hurried away to cry, Lily reflected, as she bent over the toilet and spewed her guts up. Since she spent a good potion of her time crying lately, or wanting to cry when she couldn't, it wouldn't be much of a stretch.

Severus and his ceaseless mission. She'd see James in a matter of hours. This fucking, fucking baby, and everything that came with it.

It was getting to be too much.

* * *

At 3pm, she got a text from Remus, one that simply read, _'He's here,'_ and realised that she wasn't capable of waiting until the end of her shift.

Her boss, who was never keen on letting employees leave early despite his own penchant for sneaking off to watch football, didn't believe Lily when she claimed that she had suddenly come down with a headache, which caused a minor delay in her journey. He relented, though, when in a burst of impatience, she revealed that she had to go and tell some bloke she hardly knew that she was carrying his unborn child, but that she'd stay if he really thought that was less important than some anorak-wearing ceramic enthusiast getting his pot of Earl Grey in a timely manner.

Kingsley did not think that was less important, and sent her on her way with a nervous, yet surprisingly gentle hug for a man who wouldn't have looked out of place in a Marvel movie.

The rain was still torrential, and though Lily had made a vow to herself that she'd hold on to her pennies, she couldn't face another cold, wet walk like the one she'd taken to work that morning - only partly because she'd retouched her makeup and fixed her hair during her lunch hour, in light of the impending reunion - so she took a taxi to Remus's house, hoping for a moment of peace before the storm. Unfortunately, her driver was one of those overly chatty types - "Ernie Prang's the name, taxi driving is my game!" - who attempted to draw her into conversation by discussing the weather, how much better the weather had been at his daughter's wedding in Magaluf, his distaste for Theresa May, how much he disliked his daughter's new husband, and his toe surgery, complete with an innumerable smattering of dad jokes. It was a fair whack for a fifteen-minute drive, and Lily had to pull out the illness excuse to account for her silence. She normally liked a good natter with a left-leaning cabbie, but her head wasn't up for it.

When did dad jokes start? After the baby was born? Before? Once they reached a certain age? Was she dooming James Potter to lifetime spent cracking wise about how he'd been an iWitness to a robbery at the Apple store?

She'd never been to visit Remus at his house before, but the maisonette was recognisable by the plague mask Sirius had mounted at his bedroom window, facing outwards for everyone to see. According to Mary, he'd had a few complaints about it from the jumpy Norwegians across the road who were unnerved to see it watching them when they tried to shut their curtains at night.

She was feeling fairly jumpy herself, when she knocked on Remus's door, though the last thing she expected was for James himself to come bouncing up, his frame distorted by the rippled glass pane, and open it himself.

He did, though, and his mouth fell open when he saw her.

"Lily," he said immediately, his hand jumping to tangle in his messy hair.

He was wearing a t-shirt with the silhouette of a stag printed on the front, staring at her in shock, and she had forgotten - or underestimated, or ignored - just how gorgeous he was, and how powerful she had allowed her newly-minted feelings to grow, but her heart gladly reminded her.

And that was bad. Terrible. She was having his baby, and the poor sod didn't know it yet. Now wasn't the time for unbidden thoughts of kissing him, as if that would make everything else melt away, as if kissing him hadn't been pebble that started this landslide in the first place.

"James," she said, her tongue as dry as sandpaper. "Hi."

"Hi," he repeated.

A door slammed shut in the hall behind him, and Remus's head appeared over James's shoulder.

"Ah, Lily!" he cried, with a brightness that seemed terribly forced in comparison to the mute, dumbstruck staring that Lily and James were both currently embroiled in. "Sorry, I was in the loo, wasn't expecting you until later. Please, come in."

James stood back to let her pass him by, his lips pressed together, and she slid into the hall without another word, her eyes fixed determinedly on Remus now. He obviously hadn't been forewarned of her arrival, which was fair enough. Remus's job was to facilitate a meeting, not prepare James for the life-changing news he was about to hear. She wondered if it had been difficult for him to act as if everything was normal, knowing what he knew. She owed him rather a lot, she supposed. Certainly more than half a cake.

"Come through to the living room," Remus instructed, urging them both to follow him. Through the door at the end of the hall, she found herself in a good-sized lounge - at least a third of which was taken up by the largest flat-screen television she had ever seen - with two squishy red sofas, an old bookshelf creaking with the weight of so many hardbacks, a desk piled with psychology textbooks and an exceptionally well-stocked bar. Half modest, half ostentatious wealth. Half Remus, half Sirius.

Nobody sat, when they were all in and Lily had taken off her coat, but Remus clapped his hands together once.

"So," he said. "Now that you're both here—"

"What's going on?" said James.

"—I'm going out," Remus finished, with an apologetic smile. "Look, mate, Lily will explain everything, but I think I should make myself scarce. Would either of you like something from Tesco? No?"

James frowned at him in bewilderment. Lily squeezed her eyes shut and rubbed at her temples.

"Brilliant, I'm broke anyway," said Remus. "So I'll just go, and, er - good luck, both of you."

He practically ran from the house, once he'd put his coat on, and Lily couldn't blame him for his haste to get away. She barely wanted to be around for this conversation, but unless she could put Mary in a ginger wig and pass her off as another person - and something told her James would notice - her presence was required.

James watched him leave, but turned to Lily as soon as the front door clicked shut, essentially locking them both in together.

"Why," he began, regarding her curiously. "Do I get the feeling that I've been set up somehow?"

"Probably because you have been," she admitted. "How are you?"

"I'm okay?" he said. "I think. Mostly confused. How are you?"

 _Fine. Fine. Say you're fine. It's just one word. One syllable. It means nothing. It's a safe way to start, then ease him into it. Tell him that you're fine, and don't just blurt out—_ "Pregnant."

James blinked at her. "What?"

Well.

That was one way to go about it.


	7. Oh, Baby

**Author's Note:** all James all the time all James all the time all James all the time all James all the time all James all the time

 **Chapter 6**

 **Oh, Baby**

 _Pregnant._

The word hung weightless in the air for a moment, huge and suffocating in its density, unseen, but there all the same.

It was her turn to speak, and she had to, for she was the one with all the information. There were too many points to cover and Lily wanted, or needed, for James to know everything at once, because every second he spent not knowing was a second in which he could assume something contrary to the truth, but Shakespeare himself couldn't construct a single sentence that would get this over with quickly.

Why hadn't she rehearsed this? She'd made a bullet-pointed list that she consulted in the cab, but that wasn't good enough. She should have written a speech. She was normally so prepared.

"I'm so sorry," she said, and though she should have taken a breath, she could see the weight of her announcement catch him square in the chest with the force of a cinder block; his sudden stillness, the widened eyes behind his glasses, and every other word came out in an inarticulate rush. "I didn't mean to say it right away like that, it's just that I've really wanted to tell you and I've known about it for over a week, and you're the only person in two years who I've slept with so it's yours, I mean, of course it's yours or I wouldn't be telling you, but I'm so sorry, I thought this stupid thing in my arm still worked but I got all mixed up and that was my fault, and I was drunk because Mary put a metric tonne of absinthe in those bloody cocktails, and I'm sorry, I'm so, _so_ sorry."

Then she ran out of breath, and James looked as if he might be on the verge of passing out, so she stopped talking.

There was a prolonged, excruciating silence, filled only by the sound of heavy rain pummelling the living room window.

"You're pregnant?" he said quietly.

She nodded.

James sat down on the arm of the sofa, his mouth hanging slightly open, staring blankly at something that wasn't there.

"I, um," she began. "No, actually, I'll be quiet. You just take a minute."

She wanted to say something else. She wanted to apologise again, explain again, and most importantly tell him that she hoped he'd find it in his heart to get on board because she was terrified of doing this by herself, but he had to have his reaction first. He deserved that. Lily had gotten hers, tearful and ugly, while she clung to her best friend in their tiny bathroom, doubled over with shock even though she'd known instinctively what the test would say before she took it. James was getting this news out of the blue, with no friends around to see him through it. He had so much less to lose, but he also had less control, less choice, and that might have been worse, in a way. Lily could rid herself of this baby and was choosing not to, but he was going to be a father, whether he wanted it or not.

James was entitled to a reaction, whatever it was, and she'd need to deal with it.

She sat down on the opposite sofa, perched as primly as possible, and waited, until he looked up at her as if he'd just remembered that she was in the room with him.

"Lily?" he said.

"Yeah?"

"Are you okay?"

She had imagined this conversation taking so many different shapes, but immediate concern for her welfare was the last thing she'd expected, and if she hadn't already suspected that she felt more for him than she should have done, that would have taken her out.

She could have cried, and felt the need for it, pulling insistent at the back of her throat, but she'd sworn to herself that she'd get through this day in one piece.

"I don't know," she said, and ran a hand through her hair, pushing it away from her forehead. "I really - I don't - it's been an awful lot to process, you know, so that's - more importantly, are _you_ okay? That's more my concern at the minute."

"Um, yeah," he replied, frowning. "Just a bit shocked, I think."

"Yes, of course. That's understandable."

James nodded, then he seemed to drift off into his own little world, while Lily, feeling suddenly as if she'd run a marathon, flopped backwards in her seat, her head bumping gently against the back of the sofa, and took a deep breath.

She had processed the news with hysterics. James, apparently, needed peace and quiet.

"Remus knew?" he said, after a couple of minutes.

"He guessed, when I asked him to invite you up. Actually, it was more of a joke, but I didn't exactly react well."

"Oh."

"You're not angry, are you, that I told him first?"

"No," he said. "No, it's fine. I'm glad you had a friend."

He dipped his head to the side and tugged absently at a strand of his own hair, and seemed completely lost, and it felt for the first time since this all started as if she was looking at a person who might possibly understand her, or even a shred of how she had been feeling.

"So, maybe I should talk for a bit?" she softly suggested, and sat up straight again. "Just to catch you up on what I know, and then you'll have all the information I have?"

He looked at her. "Sure."

"Okay," she breathed. To her own ears, her voice sounded shakier than normal, and she wondered if he knew her well enough to notice. "So, I did some tests at home last Tuesday, but I've also been to the doctor and had one there. That was last week, and today is - what date is it?"

"December 2nd."

"Right, so currently, that means I'm six weeks pregnant because they date it - and I didn't even _know_ this until last week - from the first day of your last period, which was October 17th, so, you know, you can do the maths, and also I just wanted to say - I mean, it's _really_ important to me that you know I didn't plan this, okay?"

He frowned at her, seemingly puzzled. "I don't—"

"—because I've been watching a _lot_ of daytime television over the past week, and you'll be surprised how many people do that," she continued, not to be waylaid. She had lost sleep for worrying that she somehow couldn't convey this to him, that he'd assume she'd done it all on purpose, and it was totally irrational - as Mary had reminded her - but Lily had already moved past trying to understand why her fears were what they were. She touched two fingers to her upper left arm and pressed hard, feeling the familiar bump beneath her skin. "I've got a Nexplanon implant – it's still there, you can feel it – and I think I mentioned that to you when we left the pub to – I did tell you, right?"

"Yeah, you mentioned it."

"Yes, so, anyway, I had it, but I was meant to get it changed a few months ago, only I didn't get the letter because Mary and I changed flats and I didn't give the GP my new address, and for some reason I thought it didn't need to be changed out until January because I'd mixed the dates up with a blood test I had, which I realise is entirely my fault—"

"It's not your fault."

"Yes it is, I should have been more aware—"

"No," he said, in a firm, that's-enough-of-that kind of way, which reminded her a little of Remus when he found Sirius too trying and told him off. "It doesn't work like that, you can't blame yourself for this as if I've done nothing wrong. I should have worn a condom—"

"I should have asked you to—"

"That should have been on me. You thought you were safe, at least. I did nothing."

"I'm still going to feel like I'm responsible."

"Well, don't. Please," he said, with such sincere concern in his eyes that she felt herself melt a little, reminded of the exasperating fantasy that had been popping into her head at inconvenient moments, the one in which she and James and the baby found themselves in an adorable little cottage with ivy covered-walls, calling themselves 'The Potters' as if this could somehow all work out, living in a catalogue-perfect world of bubble baths and delicious roast dinners, of sex on Sunday mornings and dimpled baby cheeks.

That was a perfume scented dream, but reality was so very ugly most of the time.

"I'm rather adept at self-blame, so I can't promise anything," she said, with a little shrug.

"If you want to blame anyone, blame me," he insisted. "Or even better, blame your mate."

"Mary?"

"Who puts absinthe in a bunch of cocktails?"

"I know!" Lily squeaked. "She told me and I was like, what the fuck?"

"What was she trying to do, kill us both?"

"Probably, though she's weirdly obsessed with this baby, so you could make a strong case for this entire mess being by her design."

He laughed, and it was a beautiful, helpless thing, a split-second of normalcy in a horrid situation, and the smile she gave him in return was pained, but it felt a lot better than crying in her bedroom.

 _"Are_ you okay, though?" he said. "I know I already asked, but how are you, really?"

"Honestly, I feel like an absolute mess," she admitted. "I was sick in work this morning, and my boobs are sore, not to mention I'm terrified and crying all the time, and I can't ask anyone I know for advice because I don't _know_ anyone who's gone through this before. My own mother is dead, and my sister has a kid, but - I mean, I think I was still in nappies the last time she actually gave a shit about me. Do you have any siblings?"

"Only child, me."

"Right," Lily replied. "Of course you are, you're bloody perfect. It's like, why have another when we've peaked with this one?"

That surprised another nervous laugh out of him. "What was that?"

"That was honesty, and it was also Mary's fault," she explained, looking down at her feet. "I mean, not really, but now I think I'll make a habit of blaming her."

"I can support you in that."

"Thank you."

"But can I ask you a question?"

She looked back up at him. He was leaning forward, his elbows balanced on his outstretched knees, his eyes on her face, and his expression had changed. He looked scared, now, but not in the way he had before.

"Sure," she said.

"Are you keeping the baby?"

Their little pocket of normality was crushed to powder, and this time, the nauseating feeling that gripped her so soundly was a product of her frayed nerves.

"I'm sorry for asking," James continued, before she could furnish him with an answer. "It's just that I know you had a pretty specific plan for your life, so I was wondering—"

"Yeah, sure, that makes sense," she agreed, but found herself unable to say it. "Would you rather I didn't keep it?"

"You've already made your decision, right?" he said, looking wary.

"Well, yes, but I want to know—"

"Look, it's your body, and I'm not - I mean, I'd prefer - no, honestly, I'll back you up, whatever you want to do—"

"Right now, I want to know what _you_ want—"

"Lily, just tell me, please, are we having the baby or not?"

It was the word 'we,' flung at her as carelessly as if he hadn't felt the need to think about what it implied, as if 'we' had been an accepted fact from the very beginning, that Lily would remember with the most about that day, long after it was gone, and long after all the finer details were blurred by the inconstant flux of human memory.

"I'm keeping it," she said.

He let out a breath. "Okay."

"It's not for any moral reason – I'm not against abortion, but I thought about my options for a week, and I can't – I know I can't go through that, and I – I want to keep it."

James nodded, though it was a long, drawn-out movement, as if he were underwater. His expression was unreadable. "Okay."

"But look, I just wanted you to know that you have a choice, okay?" she quickly continued. "I had a choice and I made it without you, and that's – well, it's not ideal – and I just wanted you to know that if this isn't what you want, like, it's unfair of me to just say wham, that's it, I'm keeping the baby and you have to do this and this and that, so be as involved or not involved as you like, that's completely up to—"

"Of course I'll be involved."

Her heart squeezed itself. "I don't want you to feel like I've pressured you."

"It's nothing to do with that," he said, sounding almost annoyed that she would suggest it. There was something in his expression – the determined set of his jaw, perhaps, or the way he'd caught her gaze – that she hadn't seen all those weeks ago at the pub. "You haven't. I wanted you to keep it. I want to be involved."

"You really don't have to decide right away," she reminded him. "I didn't, I took a whole week—"

"That's fine, if that's what you needed to do, but I don't need to think about it," he said stubbornly. "If you're telling me there's a baby – _my_ baby – then I'm its dad."

She felt as if every emotion that had wrestled for dominance in the cavernous arena that had become her mind – fear, shame, uncertainty – had ceased to fight and grown still, waiting with baited breath for something big to climb into the ring and knock them all aside, while her eyes stung in anticipation of tears and the rain danced hard against the window, demanding to be heard, and she noticed all of a sudden that the winter sun had slipped away from them, leaving the whole room dark.

"You're sure?"

"I'm sure."

"Really sure? You don't want to take any time?"

"This isn't like trying to tattoo your arse when you're drunk," he said. "I don't think there'll come a point in the future where I sit down and think, shit, I really regret being there for my child for all these years."

"What if they wind up an axe murderer?"

"Oh." He blinked. "Well, then I'll just blame Mary, I suppose."

Lily meant to laugh, but it didn't come out like that. Relief had hit her like oncoming traffic, clearing pathways through anxiety and fear like little golden threads of magic, bleeding all together in one overwhelming cocktail, and there was nowhere for that feeling to go but out.

Instead of laughing, she started to cry.

"'Kay," she said, though it was barely a word, more a high pitched squeak. Tears brimmed up and out, and she covered her mouth with her hand.

"Have I upset you?"

"No."

"You're sure about that?"

She nodded, rather frantic in her movement. "It's just I really wanted you to say that and I didn't want to ask and I feel like, I feel—"

But the rest was constricted by a tightness in her throat, and she sloped forwards, her face pressed into her hands, eyes screwed tight against the outside world. She was crying, not the way she'd cried in her room - with hard, hopeless dry sobs that tore strips from her chest - but with far too much feeling, and hot, cleansing tears that scrubbed the grime from her tired soul.

She heard a movement from his side of the room, and then James was standing in front of her.

"C'mere," he said, and held his hand out. "Hugs help."

She looked up at him and shook her head. Through her watery eyes, his lovely face had grown a little blurry. "It's okay, you don't have to—"

"I just found out that I'm having a kid, Lily," he told her. "I need one too. Come on."

With a sniffle, Lily placed her hand in his and let him pull her to her feet, then he drew her into his arms, into a hug that meant every bit of itself, full and close and achingly reassuring, one that wrapped her up in warmth, rocked her gently from side to side as if to lull her to sleep, while she laid her cheek against his chest and let her tears fall without shame and felt, finally, like some of the weight had been lifted from her shoulders.

"I really didn't want to do this alone," she muttered into his shirt.

"You don't have to, it's okay," he said softly, and rubbed circles in her back. "Everything's going to be okay."

For a snapshot of a moment, she believed him.

* * *

"So, do you have any appointments lined up that I need to know about?"

"One at the minute," she said, tapping the cabinet door with her heel. "The GP referred me to a midwife at the Rosie, so I've got an appointment with her on Monday the 11th, and I have to book in a bunch of screening tests to make sure the baby isn't at risk of inheriting certain disorders - which reminds me, you're not a genetic carrier for any known conditions, are you?"

"Does being very handsome count?"

Lily snorted.

"In that case, none that I know of," he said, and dropped a teabag each into two oversized mugs. "What time's your appointment?"

"11am."

"I'll probably drive up Sunday night, then. Monday morning traffic can be a pain."

"You don't have to come—"

"I do, actually."

"To every appointment?"

"Yup." He flicked on the kettle and turned towards her, knocking his hip against the counter's edge. "Short of actually giving birth for you, which I physically can't do, I'm doing everything, so you'd better get used to the sight of my face."

She smiled at him. "Lucky for me, I like the sight of your face."

"Cool. I like yours, even when you're all red and puffy."

"I guess our fondness for each other's faces might have been a contributing factor to winding up pregnant."

"Mystery solved!" he cried, and grinned at her. He had a smile that could have made a weaker person drop dead from the sheer gorgeousness of it all. "Do you take sugar?"

"Not normally, but I'm going to get fat anyway, so you might as well give me a spoonful."

Lily, as it turned out, had been hoarding a lot of pent-up tears which had kept themselves cordoned away from the ones she'd cried since she'd learned of her pregnancy, and James had been wonderfully patient about it while she let them all go. It had taken quite a while, and a fair bit of hugging, and when her eyes had finally dried, the only thing for it was a nice cup of tea. Remus and Sirius were still away, the latter having been taken out for an all-day pub crawl by Lily's housemate, but James was well acquainted with their kitchen.

Mary had texted earlier to say that Sirius had gotten so drunk by noon that he'd insisted upon taking the train, and then a bus, to the Sea Life Centre in Hunstanton, two-and-a-half hours away from Cambridge, because of a sudden, pressing desire to meet and converse with a blacktip reef shark, who he claimed would understand him on many primal levels.

As a result, Mary had also sent her several photos of seahorses and terrapins, as well as a promise to garrote James with her Lara Croft braid if he didn't want to step up for the baby.

That, thankfully, didn't seem as if it was going to be an issue, because he was wonderful. Better than she could have hoped. She felt as if he'd reached right into her chest, clamped his fist around that confounded knot of worry chest and yanked it out, leaving her with a feeling of blessed relief - even if it was bound to return at some point - because she wasn't alone, and her baby was _their_ baby, and because Remus was right, and he was a bloody good bloke.

"Do you know what you're going to do about uni?" James asked her, once he'd made their tea and handed her a mug. He leaned backwards against the fridge to drink his, with one leg crossed in front of the other. "You can finish out the year, can't you?"

"I could," she allowed. "But I don't know if that's practical. My sister and I inherited some money when my parents died, and that's been covering my tuition and my rent, but I don't have a lot left and most of my spare funds come from weekend work and whatever I can save working during holidays, so I was going to get a student loan for my PhD. Now I'm thinking it might be better to drop out and get a job so I can save a bit more and get some maternity pay, if I'm really lucky?"

"So, you wouldn't finish your undergrad?"

"I could cross my fingers and hope to go back to it, eventually. It's not ideal, and a PhD is out of the question, but what can you do? The baby's got to come first."

"But you don't have to decide right now, do you?" he said, with a frown. "I mean, you could give it a couple of months, maybe? I'm making decent enough money, so I can help you out if you need it."

"I can't ask you to do that, and I'm not going to."

"You're not asking if I'm offering."

"When it comes to getting stuff for the baby, yeah, I think we should split it 50/50, but I'm not going to let you pay for stuff for me, okay?" She lifted her mug to her lips and took as generous a mouthful as she could without burning her tongue. "Thank you so much for offering, though, honestly, it's incredibly sweet and kind of you."

James sighed, and ruffled his messy black hair with his free hand. "I know I'm not entitled to an opinion—"

"Actually, your opinion is the only one I care about right now."

"Really?"

"Of course, you're my baby's father," she reminded him. "And I'm not saying this just to make you feel like I'm including you, or something, I have no intention of listening to what you say and then ignoring it - if anything is going to affect the baby, I want us to be able to make decisions together. So please, feel free to have opinions because I'm dying to hear all of them."

"Alright," he said, looking especially chuffed, which she found especially heartwarming. "In that case, I really think you should finish the year out."

"Any particular reason why?"

"Because it's important to you, and because somebody's got to teach our baby how to follow their dreams, and mostly because once the baby comes, if it looks anything like me, it'll be so adorable that you won't want to leave it, and you might never go back to uni."

Lily laughed, shaking her head from side to side. "You're something else, Potter, did you know that?"

"By 'something else,' I assume you mean 'perfect,' right?"

"What?"

"That's what you said earlier."

"I did say that," she owned. "I said that exactly. You got me."

He smiled at her. "I got you."

It was amazing, that he could make her feel so fluttery despite the baby-sized bomb she'd dropped on them both, even more so that they could smile and laugh and talk about it as if they weren't potentially setting out on a one-way trip to disaster.

She set her tea down and pushed away from the counter, so that she was standing in the centre of the tiny kitchen, within arm's reach of almost everything she could see, including James himself.

"I won't drop out," she assured him. "Not right now, anyway. I'll take a couple of months and see how things progress, yeah?"

"Sounds good to me."

"Also." Her face was starting to heat up. "About the last time I saw you, I really need to apologise—"

James's eyes widened. "Seriously, don't worry about—"

"No, but, the thing is, Remus said you thought I didn't want to see you—"

"You didn't owe me anything, it's really not a big—"

"Could you please let me explain myself?" she implored, and reached out to lay a hand on his arm, while seemed to silence him most effectively. "Please? Because I _did_ really like you, honestly, but my parents were super religious - I mean, _hardcore_ Catholic, church every Sunday and weekly confessions and all of that stuff - and even though I'm not, I was basically raised on guilt and shame, and I had all these stupid ideas in my head about how I'd let my mum down and how you wouldn't respect me because I'd somehow cheapened myself, which is stupid, I know, but you're the only one-night stand I've ever had and the second person I've slept with _ever,_ so that's where my head was at when I went sprinting out of there, when honestly I feel like I should have pulled a sickie and stayed and had sex with you twenty more times."

As she'd been talking, James's face had split into the widest grin she'd ever seen. "Twenty more times?"

"I mean, at least. You were supposed to be leaving later that day."

"I would have made Peter take the train, if you'd asked me to stay," he informed her. "Also, same on the one-night stand front."

"Pardon?"

"I'm just like you, never had one before."

"Are you serious?"

"Does that seem hard to believe?"

"I mean, a little?" she said, her forehead wrinkled in bewilderment. "But only because you're so bloody gorgeous that women must be throwing themselves at you all the time."

He gave a short, loud laugh. "They really don't."

"Well, that is utterly bonkers, because - I mean, when I told you that you were the fittest guy I'd ever met, that wasn't hyperbole, or me being an idiot drunk, I am _literally_ so attracted to you that it's absurd."

"And what about you?" he said, gesturing towards her. "You're like a bloody goddess or something, descending from the astral plane to grace us foolish mortals with your presence. Are you even real?"

"See, you only say that because you have no idea how much of a mess I really am."

"And _you_ only think I'm irresistible to women because you've never heard me strike out with a terrible pun."

"You make puns?"

"All the time. You'll hate it, believe me."

He smiled at her and she smiled back, two idiots finding sunshine in the mess they'd made of each other, and Lily's heart felt full.

"So," she said, swaying gently from side to side. "We like each other."

"Yes."

"But we're having a baby."

"Also true."

"And that means..."

"Pressure," James supplied. "A lot of pressure."

"Especially this early on," she added, nodding away like an enthusiastic, rosy-cheeked ventriloquist's puppet. "Because on one hand it's like, what if we start dating and it turns out that we're not right for each other, so we split up and it's all awful but we've got a child to consider so we can't get a clean break? Or, what if we _are_ right for each other but the relationship is instantly under too much scrutiny because we can't stop thinking about the baby instead of what we need?"

"You've thought about this a lot, haven't you?"

"A little obsessively," she admitted, and gave him a feeble wave. "Hi there, my name is Lily Evans and I might be obsessed with you."

"Oh," he said, grinning widely. "Well, I'm James Potter, and you're all I've been thinking about for the past five weeks."

"Really?"

"Really," he repeated. "You have no idea."

Lily knew that she was blushing. She could feel the heat bloom in her cheeks and sweep across her chest, and her heart was thudding, and with James having so neatly done away with her earlier feelings of unease and terror, there wasn't much left to stand in the way of what was, undeniably, her very close proximity to a man to whom she was so intensely attracted, she could feel a tangible electricity between their bodies.

"We probably shouldn't have sex in our friends' kitchen," she said quickly.

"Yeah," he agreed. "No. Not a good idea, all things considered."

"I mean, we haven't even figured out where we stand—"

"And Remus has a heart condition," James added. "Imagine if he walked in—"

"He'd die of shock, we can't take that risk—"

"I mean, we're not _animals—"_

"I'm sure we can control ourselves for one bloody evening."

"Besides," said James, and pointed to her stomach. "Look what happened when we didn't."

"I mean, I think what really matters here is that we know we both _want_ to—"

"Oh, yeah, definitely, I mean, I'm thinking about you naked right now."

"—but we are rational human beings, and we're capable of keeping our hands off each other."

"Absolutely," said James.

"Fantastic," Lily seconded. "High five?"

"Up top!" said James brightly, and they slapped their palms together. "I'm so glad that we avoided having sex."

"You're being sarcastic, aren't you?"

"Yep."

She laughed at that, as did he, and moved away to her side of the kitchen again, which was probably for the best. Lily had thought, rather naively, that carrying his baby would act as a powerful dampener on her baser urges, but if anything, she was more attracted to James now than she had been in October.

"So, what are we then," she said. "If the time's not right to be a couple but we can't be in the same room without wanting to tear each other's clothes off?"

James shrugged. "We're... friends, I suppose? Except I don't want to be just friends, either."

"Right," she said, turning the word over in her mind, and finding she didn't like the way it sounded. "Neither do I."

"Then, how about this?" he suggested. "For now we're just friends, but, neither of us is seeing anyone else, and we spend this time now getting to know each other better, so that at some point down the line, if we feel like we're right for each other—"

"We make a go of it then," Lily finished, beaming. "That's perfect!"

"You think?"

"Yes," she said emphatically. "You're a genius."

"I think _you're_ the genius, Ms. Law Degree."

"Either way, the kid is definitely going to have brains."

"Heaps and heaps of them," James agreed. "Well done us."

"Yeah," said Lily, a little breathlessly, and picked up her nearly-cold tea to take a sip. "Well done us."

* * *

Once everything had been talked out, leaving them with nothing to do but sit and stare at each other, it was getting late, and James – confessing to a desire to prevent her from leaving just yet – suggested getting food and pretending that life was normal for the rest of the night. Finding herself unexpectedly hungry for the first time in days, and in no mood to be apart from him, Lily agreed, so they ordered a Chinese, crashed out on the sofa and switched on Sirius's massive, overcompensating telly while they ate their special fried rice and prawn crackers. Remus had texted to say that he was having drinks at the flat of some book club chums to give them both some space, while Sirius, according to Mary's last text, had been forcibly ejected from the Sea Life Centre for yelling at a penguin to meet him outside because it had 'looked at him funny.'

"Okay, here's the thing," said James, once the film they'd been watching - a recording of _Skyfall_ that Remus-or-Sirius had saved on the Sky box - had some to an end. "Since this probably isn't the last time we watch telly together, I have to be honest and tell you that I really can't do _Strictly Come Dancing,_ or—"

 _"—X Factor?"_ Lily chimed in. "Oh God, me neither!"

"I can't stand reality television, honestly," he continued. While Lily was curled sideways with her legs tucked beneath her bottom, he was sitting normally, with his torso twisted towards her and one arm stretched across the back of the couch. "Except for _Judge Judy._ Also _Masterchef."_

"Or _Masterchef: The Professionals."_

"Even _Celebrity Masterchef_. I'll watch that if there's nothing else on."

"Everything under the _Masterchef_ umbrella, really."

"And _The Great British Bake Off."_

"Well, obviously, that goes without saying."

James grinned widely at her. "So we like the same shows, that's the important stuff out of the way."

"We're going to smash this co-parenting thing."

"Unless our kid grows up and decides to audition for _X Factor_ , in which case we can safely say we failed."

"Do you think that'll still be going by the time the baby's old enough?"

"I think that by the time our kid is old enough to audition, Simon Cowell will have found a way to transfer his consciousness into a semi-sentient cyborg," said James. "So, probably."

"I'll be okay with that only if semi-sentient cyborg Cowell faces off in an epic, yet unscripted battle with Sharon Osbourne, who at that point will be a severed head in a fishbowl attached to a giant robot body, as a really grabby end to the series."

James opened his mouth to respond, no doubt with something brilliant, but they were interrupted by the arrival of Sirius, who had somehow gotten through the front door without making a sound, but crashed into the living room as if he was performing a drug raid, veered sideways and stumbled right into the arm of the unoccupied sofa.

"Alright, mate?" said James, twisting around to greet him. "Heard you were bothering the Hunstanton sharks again."

Sirius spun around on unsteady feet and peered at them in bewilderment, his body swaying slightly, as if he was being buffeted by a gentle breeze. The only explanation for his hangdog appearance was that he had carried on drinking heavily after being kicked out of the aquarium. "Oh."

"Nice to see you, too."

"It's you two."

"At least you can still count," said James. "You look a bit squiffy."

"Since when were you coming up?"

"It was an impulse visit."

"And this is happening now?" Sirius flicked a finger between the two of them. "You and her? Out of nowhere?"

James turned to look at her, and she shook her head mid-yawn, hiding her mouth with her hand. They were closing in on midnight and she was starting to feel drowsy, so she wasn't in the right mindset to make any grand announcements. Nor was Sirius, who was clearly beyond trashed, in any fit state to hear one.

"We'll talk about it tomorrow," said James to Sirius. "And go for breakfast or something, yeah?"

"S'pose." Sirius blinked sleepily at Lily. "Mary told me off."

She raised an eyebrow. "For what?"

"Penguin was giving me attitude, needed sorting out," he muttered, watching her beneath hooded, suspicious eyes. "She says I was a prick to you."

"Was he?" said James.

Lily shook her head. "Not really."

"I was a prick," Sirius insisted.

"Yeah, alright, he was a prick."

"James normally sleeps on the sofa," he continued. "But y'can have my bed. Both of you. As recon - recompense."

"Um," said James.

"But no sex," Sirius finished, and pointed sternly at the wall, apparently under the impression that he had directed his finger towards one of them. He turned and staggered off towards the kitchen. "I run a sex-free operation."

Lily snorted, but James was looking at her worriedly, and didn't appear to have heard what Sirius said.

"Do you want me to drive you home?" he said. "My car's just outside, so I could - or you could just—"

"Stay over?" Lily finished. "I don't mind. Actually, I'd rather just stay here, I'm pretty pooped."

"And you're okay sharing a bed?"

"Under normal circumstances, I'd consider it a risk, but my pregnant ass just ate way too much Chinese food, and I don't want to go into the details of what's going on in my body right now, but it's _far_ from sexy, so I think I'm good."

"Alright," he agreed. "You want to go now?"

From the kitchen, she heard Sirius make a foul, choking sound, and spit something into the sink. "Please."

They were just being friends, but James took her by the hand anyway, and lead her up the stairs and into Sirius's room, which was just as Lily had imagined it would be. There were clothes strewn everywhere, faded old posters of frightening-looking bands taped untidily to the walls, what was most certainly a collection of bongs pushed up against the wardrobe, and most worrying of all, one of Lily's own drawings of his naked form taking pride of place above his bed - worrying because Lily had no idea how he'd gotten his hands on it in the first place.

"If the Chinese hadn't put me off sex," she said, pointing to the drawing. "That certainly would have."

"It didn't before," James reminded her.

"No, you're right. It must really be the food," she said, with a laugh, then frowned as something occurred to her. "Oh."

"What's up?"

"I don't have pyjamas or anything."

"That's alright," said James, and yanked his t-shirt over his head. He held it out towards her. "Here, wear this. I'll sleep in my pants."

"Thank you," she said, and took it from him. "You're sure?"

"Yeah, no problem. The alternative is wearing something of Sirius's, and I wouldn't subject you to that."

She undressed as quickly as possible - James very graciously turned away to give her some privacy - and pulled on his t-shirt, smoothing the stag print at the front over her flat stomach, which by some insane, life-altering miracle, would soon expand to house their baby. That didn't seem as daunting as it had when she'd woken up that morning.

James was already undressed in bed, lying flat on his back with the covers pulled up almost to his chin, and she slipped in beside him.

It should have felt strange, to curl up for the night with a man she barely knew, without an abundance of absinthe-laced cocktails to form the basis of an excuse, but it didn't.

"Goodnight, then," she said.

"Goodnight."

Then, on an absolute whim, and without really understanding why - perhaps because he had been perfect all day, or perhaps, simply, because she wanted to be close - Lily shifted on her side towards him, and curled her arm around his waist.

"I thought we were just being friends?" he said, though his arm wrapped around her shoulders immediately, and he turned his head to drop a chaste kiss upon her hair.

"We are," she muttered into his chest, snuggling closer still. "Friends can cuddle in bed at times of great emotional upheaval. It's in the rules."

"What rules?"

"The comprehensive set I'll write tomorrow."

"Oh, I see."

"I'll email them to you at my earliest convenience."

"Very industrious of you. That's top-notch parenting," he said, his voice thick through a yawn. "Night, Lily."

"Night, James."

He shifted beneath the blankets, and though her tummy was turned to face him, he moved his free hand to the curve of her waist and gave it a gentle pat. "Goodnight, baby."

Through the gap between Sirius's curtains, in the inky, star-dotted sky, the rain had finally stopped.


End file.
